[TheForge] Pressure Tanks was air compressors

Wed May 15 12:48:00 2002

I don't know why you'd need to be on the other side of a barn during a =
WATER test of a tank.  The advantage of testing with water is that it is =
incompressable.  You can get a tank up to hundreds of pounds pressure =
without a lot of energy being stored.  By contrast, getting the same tank =
to this pressure with air might be making a bomb.  If the tank ruptures =
with water as the test fluid, you might get squirt with water.  (If it =
fails at a fitting, which it shouldn't because fittings are stronger than =
the tank, then the fitting might pop out, but even so it probably won't go =
far.) =20

Bruce
NJ

>>> "Stephen McGehee" <[email protected]> 05/15/02 11:36AM >>>
I have been working toward using an older, galvanized water pressure
tank 40 gallons(+/-) as an accumulator to mount up in my rafters and
give a bit of a boost to my air hammer because the little Sears
compressor just isn't big enough.  I know that the pressure tanks are
tested at something like 300 psi to give an operating rating of 150 psi,
but the thing is still very rusty inside.  Sounds like a brand new
Grainger compressor of the correct size is a very inexpensive
alternative to mayhem and rearranged body parts, possible loss of
fluids...
Mother Earth News  ran an article back in the misty past about repairing
old leaking tanks and they suggested using water to test them and as
high a pressure as you could produce WITH THE TANK ON ONE SIDE OF A BARN
AND YOU ON THE OPPOSITE side with at least two walls between the testee
and testor...  Just because that ol' tank worked just fine at 40 psi in
a water system, is no guarantee that at 120 psi it will hold together...
Thanks for the reminder that we are mere mortals.

Stephen McGehee, Publisher
Irony - the sketchbook of an apprentice blacksmith
P.O. Box 925
Corydon, IN  47112
812-347-0303

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