Argon gas

[sean logieParticipant @seanlogie69385]

Where do you guys get your Co2 from. I’m after a midi/1/2 sized bottle . BOC want an arm and a leg . Baring in mind I’m in the Scottish highlands ,any recommended online sellers that have reasonable charges .

Sean

[sean logieParticipant @seanlogie69385]

[Pete RimmerParticipant @peterimmer30576]

If you are using it for your hobby then BOC do a deal which is a lot cheaper than list. Current hobby price for argoshield size y is £47/yr rental and £35.71 fill with 79p surcharge. Plus Vat.

If you're a very light user and mean to keep the bottle for a long time then a rent-free would be better.

[sean logieParticipant @seanlogie69385]

I was thinking rent free would be better for me .

Sean

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Do you want Argon or Carbon Dioxide. They are not the same.

Try a friendly pub landlord for CO2?

[Mark DickinsonParticipant @markdickinson21936]

Do you have a Hobbyweld supplier local to you?

Home

 

Edited By Mark Dickinson on 08/04/2018 10:25:06

[OldironParticipant @oldiron]

As NDIY says try to find a Co2 bottle from a pub. Failing that I used expired fire extinguisher bottles for a couple of years with no problems. The threads were 1/2" bspp so adaptor was easy to sort out.

For the rent free bottles I use now I went to **LINK** They have huge network of suppliers. I found one less than 2 miles from me.

Hope this helps

regards

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

This came up a year or so ago. In this country, there's not much of a tradition of selling bottles and selling gas, so many of these "rent free" deals look exciting until you look closer. As you might expect(?), many of the "rent free" arrangements are anything but. For many of them, you actually lose the deposit after a year or so and the refill costs are often very expensive. Whether you consider that to be either "rent free" or cheap is your call, since it works out cheaper in some cases just to rent. You should look at the terms and conditions before getting too excited. I did a spreadsheet back then and the costs were quite eye opening.

For many users, the BOC "Volkzone" offer mentioned above is unbeatable. The "Y" (4.84m3) sized bottles used for that offer aren't in much demand in industry these days so they took the view they may as well sit around in hobby workshops than gather dust in the BOC depots.

Currently I'm paying £54 per year per cylinder (inc vat). Each refill of Argoshield Light (Ar / CO2 mix for MIG/MAG) costs £42 inc vat. I take them along in person to the BOC agency, so there is no delivery or handling charge.

So look at the "deposit", how much and when you lose said deposit and how much you pay for the refills, not forgetting VAT and any other charges. The total gas volume (4.84 cubic metres in my case) is how much you get at atmospheric pressure. The size of the cylinder and the gas pressure vary with suppliers, so don't be misled by those who use a lower pressure.

You can get a good regulator for £30-40 from a BOC shop, so the bottles with built-in regs are of questionable value.

Murray

How much is the deposit and refill cost with SGS bottles? I see they don't grab your deposit which is good. But they talk about "10L bottles" etc, not the pressure or total volume of gas – what pressure / volume do they give you? 

Ah, I see it's £84 deposit and £69.60 for a "20 litre" bottle of "CO2 Argon". No mention of the fill pressure or the total volume of gas….

Edited By Muzzer on 08/04/2018 12:09:20

[JohnFParticipant @johnf59703]

Hi Sean, I use Albee gas which is part of Air Liquide but ti probably depends on whether you have a depot near you, have a look at R-Tech welding as well. Just looked at Albee and there seems to be a couple of suppliers you may be able to use. Cheers John

Forgot to say I went for Albee because they do Oxy-Acetylene as well as inert gases.

http://albeegascylinders.com

https://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/welding-equipment/welding-gas/

 

Edited By JohnF on 08/04/2018 12:32:13

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Albee quite expensive last time I looked.

The larger Albee Plus cylinder costs you £222 to buy for Argon or £317 for Ar /CO2 mix. That's almost the same volume as the Y cylinder (4.1.- 4.3m3). Refills around £65. You could rent cheaper for 5 years from BOC and refills would be 2/3 the price…..

[vintagengineerParticipant @vintagengineer]

BOC do 3 types of welding gas. Argoshield light and heavy, these are are Argon CO2 mixtures and they do pure Argon for TIG welding.

Posted by not done it yet on 08/04/2018 09:38:44:

Do you want Argon or Carbon Dioxide. They are not the same.

Try a friendly pub landlord for CO2?

[Pete RimmerParticipant @peterimmer30576]

You can only get argoshield light on the hobby deal, not heavy.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

If you are really light user those daft 1 Kg re-fillable bottles from Sealey may be worth considering. About 1/2 cubic metre at atmospheric pressure if my calculations are right. Allegedly 3 hours worth. About £20.00 a refill. Priced to look good against the disposables which are half as much for over twice the money.

Murray gets a better deal at 10 hours and over per year but fits'n starts folk like me loose out on the rental. Must be 3 or 4 years since I last fired up the MIG. OK I burned through three or four 1 Kg bottles but still well ahead. Really helps having a first class inverter stick welder so MIG is strictly for the really thin stuff.

Allegedly you can get a, presumably empty, 1 Kg bottle off Amazon for £12 ish which makes it possibly worth while. Full prices are over £70 which is plain daft considering they are basically just a re-painted baby CO2 fire extinguisher.

Now the pub landlord route has been closed off I'm surprised there aren't more folk up in the peanut gallery advocating shoving an adapter and regulator on the output of a common 2 Kg or 5 KG CO2 extinguisher. As such can be found at around £30 for 2 Kg and £80 for 5KG outright purchase it certainly looks attractive for the very light user. Especially on You-Tube. Leaving aside the fact that most hobby MIG wire feed rates generally aren't really stable enough for easy welding on pure CO2 there are all sorts of potential issues glossed over, like regulator freezing. I know it can be got to work, sort of ish, but no way would I try.

Clive

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

I have the Argoshield Light for MIG/MAG and Pureshield for TIG. Only used CO2 once, years ago and from what I recall it wasn't pretty. If you are only doing MIG, why not spend the money on a half decent gasless machine instead of giving it away to the gas suppliers?

In N America, there were many places you could pretty much just turn up with any old argon bottle with the right fittings and get it filled for not a lot as you wait (ie buy more tools). If you hire the bottle the deposit is refundable, no messing about. Over here they will only refill their own bottles and we get ripoff pricing and silly games with deposits.

Murray

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Muzzer on 08/04/2018 20:35:19:

I have the Argoshield Light for MIG/MAG and Pureshield for TIG. Only used CO2 once, years ago and from what I recall it wasn't pretty. If you are only doing MIG, why not spend the money on a half decent gasless machine instead of giving it away to the gas suppliers?

Does such a thing exist? They tend to be the cheap machines without the gas fittings. Which means they suffer from all the same issues: shitty quality torches, poor wire feed mechanisms and not enough adjustments.

[Nick HulmeParticipant @nickhulme30114]

Posted by Clive Foster on 08/04/2018 20:05:01:

there are all sorts of potential issues glossed over, like regulator freezing. I know it can be got to work, sort of ish, but no way would I try

Gas heaters aren't expensive, mine is an ESAB though and probably was expensive, the thing is I only ever needed to use it once when fabricating 1/4" wall mini-skips in icy winter weather in an unheated workshop, for a few dozen full car restorations and miscellaneous fabrication jobs both light and heavy I didn't use it and I've not needed it again.
It's very easy to draw conclusions from what you read which will not be backed up by real life experience

 

Edited By Nick Hulme on 08/04/2018 21:43:32

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Posted by Nick Hulme on 08/04/2018 21:42:31

It's very easy to draw conclusions from what you read which will not be backed up by real life experience

Indeed so.

I know of fire extinguisher CO2 being used by a pretty skilled welder as a field expedient. Said his set up was somewhat tricky and not something for the lesser skilled to attempt. Considerably harder to get good results than with the pub gas he usually used for his own work. Told me not to even think about it.

Never met anyone who could clearly explain when feed heaters were needed on the ordinary range of jobs in reasonably habitable conditions. Always figured that such were frequently just a precautionary measure to ensure there would absolutely not be any freezing problems.

Really you have to consider the target audience for normal workshop use of the technique. Most folk considering using fire extinguisher CO2 will most likely be working hard to make 5p fill in for £5. Odds are limited experience . With equipment not of the best. Either old, inexpensive or both. Wire feed issues pretty much guaranteed either way.

Such folk really need as much as possible to work by the book and exhibit the classic faults for trouble shooting. Gas source problems from a home brew set-up really won't be helpful. Especially if the difference between workable and serious trouble is something obvious to the experienced man but easily overlooked by the neophyte. Unfortunately all too common on You-Tube "worked for me" videos.

Making clear, unambiguous, easy to follow beginner / inexperienced viewer friendly videos is Hard. Very Hard.

Clive

[Nick HulmeParticipant @nickhulme30114]

Posted by Clive Foster on 08/04/2018 23:46:24:

Posted by Nick Hulme on 08/04/2018 21:42:31

It's very easy to draw conclusions from what you read which will not be backed up by real life experience

Indeed so.

I know of fire extinguisher CO2 being used by a pretty skilled welder as a field expedient. Said his set up was somewhat tricky and not something for the lesser skilled to attempt. Considerably harder to get good results than with the pub gas he usually used for his own work. Told me not to even think about it.

It wasn't "Tricky", it just needed basic knowledge of cylinder types, Fire Extinguishers are a Dip Tube cylinder, they feed liquid from the bottom of the cylinder to the valve and thus reg, if you try to use one for shielding it'll feed liquid to the top and freeze, but a little research reveals this, it's how I know and I did it by telephone in the early 1980s.

To use a Dip Tube cylinder you invert it in order to feed evaporated gas rather than liquid, you may then need to vent the liquid from the tube before using with a reg.

None of this is Rocket Surgery, and it's not Magic Welding Knowledge either, it simply requires a level of "being bothered to do a bit of research" that is sadly lacking in the lazy majority of the population, what's sadder still is that determining all of this was not hard before the Internet came along and made it easier still for all but the very hardest of thinking.

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

This is from the opening page of the sgs site……..

 

 

RENT FREE WELDING GAS

THERE'S NO RENT ON OUR GAS BOTTLES

SGS Gases do not, and never will charge rental on our cylinders! We charge a cylinder deposit that is 100% refundable, forever! You can keep a cylinder 50 years and not be charged a penny more than the cost of our gas, when you return the cylinder we will always give you your full deposit back!

 

So that answers the question of a loss of deposit !!

 

and they have dealers in Fort William, Inverness and Elgin

 

also loads along the east coast….

 

 

Tony

Edited By Antony Powell on 09/04/2018 09:44:08

Edited By Antony Powell on 09/04/2018 09:44:58

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Thanks Tony for pointing out SGS Gases. I have found a dealer about 5 miles from me and obtained a 10 litre cylinder of argon Co2 mix (5% Co2) The deposit was £70.00 + VAT and the gas was £39.00 +VAT. I could find no information to say what pressure the cylinders are charged to. The pressure in the one I received was 200 bar.

Les.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Don't recall paying any deposit for my BOC cylinders. And the gas is about 1/3 the cost of the 20L SGS. It's a question of how much you use each year – horses for courses. Prices include VAT.

	Vol (m3)	Deposit (£.)	Refill (£.)	Rent (£/yr.)	Cost(£/m3.)
SGS	2.0	84	46.80	0	23.40
BOC	4.72	0	42.00	54	8.90

Murray

Edited By Muzzer on 20/04/2018 22:42:10

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