I’m curious about how many of ya’ll remove regulators and re-cap your tanks when they’re not in use.
Back when I lived in Flatlandia I never did this but now that I live in an earthquake zone and work out of an old-AF wood-framed garage, I do it.
For those of you living in seismically active areas, do you take any additional precautions?
Hahaha that is a good reminder, I’m in Alaska and I have only taken my regulators off when moving the tanks. I don’t think I’m necessarily a shining example of safety and precaution in this regard. But I store my OA tanks chained up on the steel hand cart. I’d love to up my game for gas and chemical storage, especially since I have folks in the shop frequently for mechanics classes. Argon tanks are stored with the caps on.
All pressurized tanks are always strapped to the wall when not in use. I have tank racks for my argon tanks. The OA cart tolls up against the wall and gets strapped. All racks and straps are anchored to studs. Any pressurized tank can become a middle very easily if knocked over.
Sorry I should’ve clarified, all my tanks are always chained to the wall (and I’m not a fan of leaving O/A on a cart b/c I’ve almost tipped one over).
In undergrad our 3D studio had 2 holes in the walls: 1 was from a 2x4 the other was from an uncapped/unchained cylinder. Incidents happened before I got there but they left the holes as a warning to new students.
Chaining/strapping tanks is the bare minimum IMO.
@charlieSBI what are you thinking in terms of “upping your game”
@Neuhaus_Metalworks IIRC you’re near the Bay Area, do you take any additional precautions in case of an earthquake?
Two strap or chain minimum if the tank doesn’t have a nested location or is on a cart. The cart and tank is always pushed back against the wall and strapped when not in use.Nothing gets stored above tanks that can fall on them or the regulators. I do very little brazing relative to the number of bikes I build and get by with very small O/A tanks. These are safer when left on the cart and then anchoring the cart and tanks as a single unit.
My tanks are strapped to studs in the wall. I have a shelf above the tanks that prevents objects from falling on top of the regulators.
I need to make room on the wall for sure. The shop is getting a reorganization and at the very least I’ll put some chains on the wall, and the shelves above the tanks is a great idea. My ceilings are super high, but in the Yamaguchi class he ran the hose on the ceiling on hooks and that was really great. I’ve seen a few fire/chemical storage containers floating around craigslist but everything costs money.
When I was in the market for new regulators, I found that the Victor Edge 2.0 (pdf) are designed to be impact resistant which is a neat feature I hope to never to use.
I’m an infrequent builder and cap the tanks when they aren’t in use. I also move them out of our house and back to the garage.
When I was more frequent I left things hooked up, but my tanks were chained to the workbench, under its 2” thick maple top, and had a large metal chest on the other side of them.
I keep planning to move to an oxy concentrator. My fuel is chemtane (which handles like propane) and it would be nice to have no high pressure tanks at all.
I haven’t seen those before. I’ll probably end up replacing/upgrading my regulators to those later this year.
Thanks for linking them!
My propane tank sits underneath my welding table, and my oxygen tank strapped to the side of my 7’ work bench (weighs around 200lbs). I don’t disconnect the regulators and my oxygen tank doesn’t have a cap (it has the plastic protector thing). I use my brazing setup frequently, so a full tear down would be a pain in the butt.
I think I will need to reorganize when I set up my in-line fluxxer. Currently I have to move my propane tank (but not disconnect), when I want to wheel my welding table out. I attach my Bringheli alignment table to the welding table when I need to do that stuff.
I ran these on our portable tanks with students. It seemed prudent to me and thankfully never had to “test” them. 
product link
