Anybody ever gotten bad gas from Airgas? What did you/they do about it?
I have been fighting some problems for a while now and have mentioned it in a few other threads. I finally got my other bottle filled today and traced all my problems to bad gas.
I was going to post pics, but apparently shiny alum does not photograph well. At least not with either of my cameras. I did a lap joint and a bead in the middle of the plate. One side with the old gas and one side with the new gas. There was a night and day difference. The old gas had little to no etching, floaties, and the puddle was hard to control. The new gas had good etching, shiny surface, and the puddle was very predictable. To test, I set the welder up and ran several beads. Then I swapped the reggo to the other bottle without changing anything else. I didn't prep the tungsten, I didn't change the settings, hell I even used the same filler rod. Half a length with the old gas and half a length with the new gas. To me, the results are crystal clear. I thought I was losing my touch, turns out it was just bad gas....
So has anybody else had gas problems, and what did your supplier do for you to correct the situation. I think I can eat all the filler and time that I got wrapped up in trouble shooting. A full bottle of good gas would make me happy. Do ya think that is asking too much?
I have had the bottle about 3 months, it was on my welder with the spool gun that doesn't get used much. I had it filled when I modified my MM 251 to hold both bottles. Didn't ever use it with the spoolgun. When I ran out on my tig, I just swapped it over. Never occured to me that that's when the trouble started. Either way, it is a 125cf bottle and I used about half of it trying to track down "my" problem. Turns out it was actually their problem. Tonight, I switched bottles back and forth several times to confirm it was the gas.
