On 17 Jan 2001, at 1:00, Brad Stambaugh wrote:

> My two cents on this alloy,
>
> I bought an older al 80 last summer, but made sure it was -not- made of
> that alloy.  I found a few things about this on the internet, and
> decided I didn't want anything to do with these tanks. Better safe than
> sorry!  Below is source of info about 6351-T6 alloy
> http://www.evcom.net/~n4mwd/chris.htm
> .......................................................

There is no doubt that the 6351 alloy is dangerous and in my
opinion should be recalled by the various manufacturers. The
problem with this is that a couple of these manu's don't exsist
anymore. Another problem is the lack of knowledge about the
issue by some dive shops/operators. There are older tanks out
there that were not produced using this alloy that are safe. The
easy out for the shops is to pick a date and say nothing earlier
than this gets filled in my shop. Having seen the aftermath of some
of the tank failures, I can understand this. My son fills tanks and I
certainly don't want him filling a 6351. Hence we have the list of
affected tanks posted at the fill station. If a tank is found on the list,
it doesn't get filled. There are a shit load of those tanks around too.
A couple of mine were just hydroed and vip+ with no problems but I
just don't trust them anymore so they are going away. I could
easily sell these tanks but prefer not to do so. They will be
destroyed, actually, I'm cutting the tops off and making bells out of
them.. :-)

A tank from that alloy and that date can't tell you how many cycles
it has gone through so it will always be suspect in my mind.



~~~~~~~~~
Mike
North Alabama Association of Technical Divers
members.home.net/mwallace61/main.htm
~~~~~~~~~