GaRn

Gonna complete my MIG setup now, and I was wondering if I should buy a tank or just rent one, when renting tanks its like what $15-20 for gas and a couple for the tank right?

The thing I wanted to know was when renting tanks is it just like propane tanks where you drop them off/exchange whenever or do you have to rent for a period of time? I'm not gonna be doing welding on a regular basis so who knows how long I would need the tank..

non-vtecpower

You could always go with some gasless wire...

GaRn

Well I have been, thats the thing, I want to go MIG.. I have a MIG/Flux welder, its all setup for gas, just need the tank and have it filled!

non-vtecpower

You can buy mig wire gasless too

non-vtecpower

Some places that fill Argon bottles wont fill them unless its one of there own bottles..

GaRn

Well its not really MIG if its flux wire lol

Cosmo

I get all my oxygen from Arcet on Plantation road. They just swap them out when you need a new one.

myclone

I buy my bottles/gas from Arcet on pantation since I may go weeks at a time without using them. The down side is that if you buy the tanks instead of leasing them you can only get the little tanks (dunno what the capacity is so I just call them "the little ones"). Since I bought my tanks from them when I need more gas I return the empty and pick up a full bottle which costs ~$30.

If you do a lot of welding or cutting and forsee needing refills on a regular basis then leasing them may be the way to go. When leasing you can get the bigger bottles too which saves making multiple trips for refills if you use a lot. Its been a while since I talked to them about pricing when leasing but it seems like it was ~$115 per year to lease plus the cost of the gas.

My shielding gas for my MIG and my TIG lasts quite a while which isnt bad as far as cost but I go through acet/oxy pretty quick when using the torch so if I get into a project where Im doing a lot of burning the little tanks dont last long. Just to give you an ideas I went through two of the small tanks of acet/oxy just to cut up the shell and frame of a car I parted out so I could haul it to cycle systems.

IMO the best thing to do would be to call them and get some pricing then crunch the numbers to see if leasing or buying would be best for you.

GaRn

Thanks, thats what I needed to know

sucks though that you have to buy a nice new tank for like what, $100 then when you use it all you have to swap it out for some rusty busted up one ha..

Cosmo

The small tanks are 60cf tanks. You can lease up to a 282 gas tank. I think the rent on my 282's is 12¢ a day. Or you can lease it for a year for $55. Costs me about $35 to fill it.

All I get from them is oxygen, so I'm not sure the prices of other gasses.