Joe Shneehagen accident

When I first got into pcp...I handled my scba tanks like they were made of thin glass. After I got to witness my local fire department drive their truck up to the firehouse door and skid the tanks 30-40 feet across the concrete floor to a guy at the compressor, fast fill them , then skid them back to be very loosely contained in a metal rack on the truck while they rattled around down the road....I realized how overbuilt the things were and stopped worrying about them.

Mike
 
When I first got into pcp...I handled my scba tanks like they were made of thin glass. After I got to witness my local fire department drive their truck up to the firehouse door and skid the tanks 30-40 feet across the concrete floor to a guy at the compressor, fast fill them , then skid them back to be very loosely contained in a metal rack on the truck while they rattled around down the road....I realized how overbuilt the things were and stopped worrying about them.

Mike
Yep, they don't baby them.
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What would you wrap around the tank while filling? 70 years ago we used an insulated canvas blanket to keep milk cold in the delivery trucks. They were really heavy but I haven't seen one of them in years. Rather than the tank I am concerned more about the fittings.

There is a "rest of the story" . When I think of the dumb things I have done, I am surprised to be standing upright on the ground at 85.
 
When I first got into pcp...I handled my scba tanks like they were made of thin glass. After I got to witness my local fire department drive their truck up to the firehouse door and skid the tanks 30-40 feet across the concrete floor to a guy at the compressor, fast fill them , then skid them back to be very loosely contained in a metal rack on the truck while they rattled around down the road....I realized how overbuilt the things were and stopped worrying about them.

Mike
I have spent a fair bit of time working in Firehouses and have yet to see what you have? Break the cylinder valve off and it becomes a missile....

I will add, you will not purchase a better unit than what the Fire Fighters use. I have my name on a used unit when it comes available.
 
The rural stations are a different breed.

True that. It really comes down to the leadership within each department (and how fearful of liability the bean-counters are). I've seen very well managed depts and some that I wouldn't call to put out a grease fire.

HPA and the guns it runs are a fickle thing and frankly I'm surprised that there aren't more people hurt than there are.

Given that I'm only lightly burdened with intellect and a tendency to tinker, I'll stick with pumpers and co2.

Cheers,

J~
 
This was a very serious situation, and I wish Joe the very best, in his recovery.
A tank exploding is very alarming.
A few of the members comments in the previous thread were equally alarming.
Instead of waiting for facts, learning from the incident, and attempting to prevent it from ever happening again, a few members in the previous thread were quick to cast doubt, and choose to make fun of the seriousness of Joes extremely serious injuries.

In my opinion, this event should be a reminder to inspect our tanks condition, expiration dates, and be aware of the fill limits of the gear we are using.
 
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This was a very serious situation, and I wish Joe the very best, in his recovery.
A tank exploding is very alarming.
A few of the members comments in the previous thread were equally alarming.
Instead of waiting for facts, learning from the incident, and attempting to prevent it from ever happening again, a few members in the previous thread were quick to cast doubt, and choose to make fun of the seriousness of Joes extremely serious injuries.

In my opinion, this event should be a reminder to inspect our tanks condition, expiration dates, and be aware of the fill limits of the gear we are using.
I'm in no way trying to start an argument but are you 100% sure that you have the "facts"? Was the exploded bottle in the link you posted (Careful when filling) was the same bottle Joe lost his leg?

I will say it again, I highly doubt a professional airgun dealer/shop would be so inexperienced or uneducated to fill such a bottle......That thread made no sense to me nor many others.

Please for us all, provide the proof that was the bottle Joe was injured filling it? Thank-You!
 
I think there are too many unknowns. I wish there were fewer. If Joe was injured filling an airtank I think it makes sense that it was a solid metal one. The carbon fiber tanks seem to have much more margin against any sort of catastrophic fracture. That statement is based upon the aluminum bottle failure much more dramatically at a much lower pressure than a badly damaged carbon fiber tank in the earlier thread about bottles. The picture in the "be careful filling" thread does not seem to be a carbon fiber reinforced tank. But the timing is the only thing I know of that would suggest the two topics could be related.

Perhaps a better title for the "be careful filling" thread would be "know what you are filling". For a bottle to fail at 3000 psi it has to be either badly damaged or never intended to hold 3000 psi. I only have one SCBA tank and it is an expired firemans Scott tank. There is nothing in these threads that makes me more concerned about filling it to 300 bar. But I would like to know more.