Mon Sep 29, 2014 8:26 am
I do my own VIPs as it is a hell of a lot cheaper to DIY than to pay for it. Some places charge more for a VIP than I paid for the second hand tank.
I have been certified by PSI and TDI as a high pressure cylinder inspector. I have the tools, lights, mirrors,and a tumbler so I am good to go. I spend a lot more time examining my tanks than the LDS ever will.
I have over 40, maybe 50 or so of every kind of tank. There was long ones, tall ones, short ones, brown ones, black ones,round ones,big ones, crazy ones. You get the picture.
But they all have different issues you need to look out for. I have all kinds of valves, steelies and various kinds of aluminum. I have cylinders holding less than 1 cf of air at 3000 psi to bank cylinders.
Since I get air from various sources as well as loaning tanks I find the VIP to be important as I have found some of my cylinders to have gotten a fair amount of water in them. I suspect that is from folks allowing water to enter an empty tank through an open valve as opposed to humid air fills. I also have a lot of 6351 alloy aluminum 80's and 50's that I go over very carefully.
I was a holdout and continued to use them even when folks told me I would get blown up. I am finally getting to the point though that I am getting away from using them and I reckon I will take about 20 of them and cut them off just below the shoulder and use them to make display stands for my DH collection and scrap the rest of the aluminum.
Although I have a compressor I mostly get air fills from various public safety compressors just because I love free air. I don't mind filling my own 6351 tanks myself but understand the issues it causes other folks if I am filling them at their place. So I fought the good fight for as long as I could but I think I am done filling them anymore. That will make my life easier in the long run.
I know that some of you guys just buy stickers and slap them on tanks. Some of you may even look inside closely but there is a bit more to it when you are dealing with an assortment of cylinders that have various ICC and DOT nos, various alloys, eddy current issues, burst disc vs. lead plug safeties, j-valves, bushings and so on. Since we all like collecting and diving old junk if you are going to do your own VIPs it is good to get some schooling on it.
The PSI class I took was excellent with a lot of good practical time and the instructor brought dozens of tanks with flaws that we had to find. It was a challenging class and I got my moneys worth out of that. The TDI class was not as good and the instructor basically had us do VIPs on customers tanks they had brought to his dive shop. We made the LDS owner a lot of money off of our labor and then it took months for us to get our certifications.
Do your VIPS annually or anytime you think there could be a problem or if water may have gotten inside the cylinder.