Welding Tips and Tricks

I'd seen a pic floating around FB of a bottle with a 1942 datestamp and a swastika on it, and though, wow!

Until...

I've been using this thing all day every day for a week, doing sometimes boring work and I noticed the neck ring first, and began to study it.

Here's a helium bottle, whose neck-ring reads, "U.S. Army Air Service Balloon", with various date stamps legible. Here's two images, and I'm sure you can pick out the oldest stamp. I'd love to take some time to strip the paint and see if I can find a date code 5 years earlier, to place it "in service" during WWI, but I'll have to look to see when "U.S. Army Air Service" became an official designation.

Steve S

Steve,
That is awesome. I couldn't tell, is this cylinder currently in date? It would be cool to keep as a conversation piece.
-Jonathan

Jonathan,

It IS current, or at worst several months out of date (meaning it "was" in date, because the cert is ten years, and our client has us peen out the star on the modern stamp so it must be certified every five years), and unless I hi-jack it, destined for another recertification to be placed back in service and lost to me.

I'm with you, I think it's worth keeping for converasation. There's also an october 1940 stamp on it, where it was back in service as WWII unfolded.

Steve S

That's cool.
Have one you trade it for?
Of course fill yours first for the deed.

Sent from my SM-G900R4 using Tapatalk

I just turned in my Argon bottle and among the many test stamps there were some in the '40s... there was even a USN test stamp if I recall '54

Okay, just went out to check my Oxygen bottle... Stewart Oxy-Hydrogen Co. on the neck... looks like it was made in '23. Tested in 29, 34, 40, 45, 50... 72...

If this isn't proof "Made in America" at least had value once...

The recertification of the bottle I posted will make it valid at it's centenary. How cool is that?

I'm still temped to make it "mysteriously disappear".

Steve S

That one is worth keeping! You can always have it tested, filled and returned to you!

Otto Nobedder wrote: I'm still temped to make it "mysteriously disappear".

Steve S

You could "borrow" it for a while, maybe a long while.
-Jonathan

Just looking over the cylinders I have at this plant (which is a lot) I found one with the original stamp from 1926, it also has been out of test since 1986 when that part of the plant was installed. It's there to purge an analyzer if the flow should somehow stop and draw Atmoshpere back in, which must seldom happen, because it still has 1400# pounds on the gauge. That in itself says something of the tubing that's run from it and the regulator that they have held that much pressure for so long.

Len

I think I'm gonna look at mine tonight

Y2K rears its head again, eh? Is that cert current, or the one from 100 years ago?

Very cool to see things still in service after a century...

That's just amazing! At this point, I have the oldest bottle by a mere four years!

Keep looking, guys!

Can anyone find a 100-year-old bottle? It seems to be within reach!

Steve S