mcarterbrown.com - View Single Post

Mr. Furious · 06-28-2007, 12:41 PM

I wish I could find the picture of the guy's trunk lid that looked like it got hit by a missle after his HPA paintball tank exploded in it and basically destroyed the rear of his car.

I've been filling Oxygen and SCBA tanks for years and have had to take classes and tests and recurrent testing to allow me to safely and LEGALLY fill air and oxygen bottles. It amazes me that I can walk into a paintball shop and watch a 17 year old slam fill a 4500psi air bottle and make it almost too hot to touch with no explosion proof sleeve or water tank to contain an explosion in the case of a damaged tank or regulator experiencing a catastrophic failure. People have far too little respect for the potential for life threatening injury that is contained in that little bottle on the bottom of their paintball marker and the people who fill them are far too trusting of the bottle that gets handed to them. A brief but thorough inspection of every bottle and reg assembly should be made before every fill to ensure that the tank and reg are not damaged or coated in oil.

Airguy certainly has science on his side when he makes his arguments but that doesn't change the fact that these "impossible" incidents have occured in the past on several occasions. If they are not possible based on science and physics, how could they have happened? I think his smug attitude and lack of respect for compressed gas will bite him in the rear sooner or later. As soon as you lose respect for something as dangerous as compressed air you are putting yourself and everyone around you in danger. Airguy's science does not take one thing into account: People. When you are handling, using or filling a compressed air tank that is not yours you have NO idea what stresses, damage, improper maintenance or abusive treatment that tank may have experienced during it's life. Even if it's your tank and it's never out of your sight, you should take the time to inspect it regularly for deep scratches, damage to the fibers or regulator and anything else that may have happened unknowingly to the bottle in a hard dive or slide into a bunker. If you find anything, remove the bottle from service immediately and have it inspected by a technician.

Sometimes it's good to just be safe and err on the side of caution when dealing with something as powerful as compressed air. I have great faith in my transmission's park pin and the parking brake on my car but I still put a brick behind the tires before I jack the car up. Am I being a ***** or am I erring on the side of safety?

Respect HPA tanks like you respect any device that has the potential to seriously injure or kill someone because they do have that potential.

06-28-2007, 12:41 PM	#28 (permalink)
Mr. Furious Got Rage? Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Northwestern Pennsylvania Posts: 1,949	I wish I could find the picture of the guy's trunk lid that looked like it got hit by a missle after his HPA paintball tank exploded in it and basically destroyed the rear of his car. I've been filling Oxygen and SCBA tanks for years and have had to take classes and tests and recurrent testing to allow me to safely and LEGALLY fill air and oxygen bottles. It amazes me that I can walk into a paintball shop and watch a 17 year old slam fill a 4500psi air bottle and make it almost too hot to touch with no explosion proof sleeve or water tank to contain an explosion in the case of a damaged tank or regulator experiencing a catastrophic failure. People have far too little respect for the potential for life threatening injury that is contained in that little bottle on the bottom of their paintball marker and the people who fill them are far too trusting of the bottle that gets handed to them. A brief but thorough inspection of every bottle and reg assembly should be made before every fill to ensure that the tank and reg are not damaged or coated in oil. Airguy certainly has science on his side when he makes his arguments but that doesn't change the fact that these "impossible" incidents have occured in the past on several occasions. If they are not possible based on science and physics, how could they have happened? I think his smug attitude and lack of respect for compressed gas will bite him in the rear sooner or later. As soon as you lose respect for something as dangerous as compressed air you are putting yourself and everyone around you in danger. Airguy's science does not take one thing into account: People. When you are handling, using or filling a compressed air tank that is not yours you have NO idea what stresses, damage, improper maintenance or abusive treatment that tank may have experienced during it's life. Even if it's your tank and it's never out of your sight, you should take the time to inspect it regularly for deep scratches, damage to the fibers or regulator and anything else that may have happened unknowingly to the bottle in a hard dive or slide into a bunker. If you find anything, remove the bottle from service immediately and have it inspected by a technician. Sometimes it's good to just be safe and err on the side of caution when dealing with something as powerful as compressed air. I have great faith in my transmission's park pin and the parking brake on my car but I still put a brick behind the tires before I jack the car up. Am I being a ***** or am I erring on the side of safety? Respect HPA tanks like you respect any device that has the potential to seriously injure or kill someone because they do have that potential. __________________ A skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and a mop...... Feedback: http://www.mcarterbrown.com/forums/f...-feedback.html Last edited by Mr. Furious; 06-28-2007 at 11:15 PM.