Hey guys, happy new years, anyway, just brought my bottle back to the welding shop to get it filled; since I bought the bottle from them, they just take my old one and give me a new one (stamped 2004, yay, haha) without charging me for a leak test OR having to wait to get it filled. The guy just rolls out a new cylinder for me.

Anyway, this was my first "refill" (60 cu ft took me 2 years to use!), but even tho the bottle's stamped 2004, it's got an old valve on it, and the cap is painted (badly) bright orange.

Does the orange color matter? My original bottle (which had a new valve and a new cap, dammit) had a bluish-grayish-silverish colored cap.

Parts of the orange flaked off and I can see either rust or brown paint underneath. So I was thinking for kicks to just paint it silver; I've got enough old chrome paint lying around from my high school days. (I shoulda kept my old cap, but having a pretty cap isn't a big deal.)

But does the bright orange color MEAN anything? The mix is C25 (75% argon 25% CO2). Or did they just have orange paint handy, and that's why the cap's orange?

Thanks!!

 

you mean the cap that just screws off?

it's probably the color cap that they use for the gas fill that you bought....i can't think of any other reason or maybe the guy before you did it.

 

The colors on the caps are for emergency crews (firemen etc.)to be able to identify quickly. Oxy has a yellow ,acet. red,and so on I don't remember them all and some have probably changed,but that is why they'er differant colors.

 

you know i've been fooling around with compressed gas bottles for a couple of years now and this is the first i've ever heard of color coding. never seen a red cap or bottle, never even seen the same colors used from one supplier to another for the same size bottle with the same contents.

no color of the bottle or cap doesn't matter, they don't even have to match. if i had my choice of colors i'd like something in a nice rose petel pink.

 

eh, just think of it this way... was your old bottle that color? they took that anyway...

 

Wow! I've been welding for over 25 yrs. and every Acetylene bottle I've ever used has been some form of red. Maybe it is a state by state code. Out here oxygen bottles are blue with yellow caps,inert type gases I've seen differant shades ,but are green. I don't think caps are the issue ,but the tanks should be anyway,also in theory you couldn't put a red cap from an acety.on a oxy bottle,it's a differant size.

 

The colors mean nothing, bottle, cap, valve, whatever. When I purchased a bottle this was something I specifically asked about. The answer was I could use any color I wanted, the color meant nothing.

So the acetylene bottle is silver, one argon bottle is dull red, the other is battleship gray (was brown until I cleaned it up and repainted it). The caps vary as to whatever they put on them with the refill.

I do specify that I want 'my' bottle back with a refill. In the past I've received some really beat up bottles with leaky valves. Then if the hydro expires in a month you need to pay for that too.

At least with my bottles I know what I have and when the hydro is required.

RBob.

{edit: one more thing: If you purchase a bottle keep the receipt. Some places will require that before they'll refill. Too many 'liberated' bottles out there. . .}

 

i have 3 oxygen in the garage, 2 orange and a green all from the same supplier.
3 actelene all black
c25 is gray with silver sort of cap
argon is blue

at work helium, nitrogen and argon are all black

 

all tanks have a color code i don;t know them all but a few that i do know is...


medical air/breathing yellow
breathing o2 is green
nitrogen is black
co is black
inert gases are white
nitrous is blue (medical)


as for the caps that swap and switch so you could get any color if they are off a big tank. biggest thing to watch is the sticker and valve on the tank that is what will make it work for what you need it attached to.