Thread: Is BOC the only place to get gas

BOC have put their prices up again on mig gas (argoshield). Where do uuuuuu's buy/rent your gas from?

I generally I use gasless unless there is a specific job I want to use gas for then I will get a cylinder from BOC for a short time. Would certainly prefer to use gas all the time but can't justify the cylinder rent for the intermittent use.

Have heard you can use pure CO2 for shielding mild steel work but never have looked into it further. Would be good from a cost point of view as you can buy these cylinders outright and get refills from homebrew shops.

Found a thread about using CO2 on the welding forum.

http://www.woodworkforums.com/f160/c...welding-96965/

Might be time to jump in and have a go!

Supergas, air liquide immediately come to mind.

A relative up north is a local distrubuter for air liquide and when asked was quite happy with them. He owns a engineering firm so his guys actually use what he sells.

It might not be called "argoshield" by non BOC companies, but there will be an equivalent that I'm sure will suit ur needs.

Ordered parts from my local air liquide agent in the past and found them quite helpful. Sounds like a plug for air liquide, but when someone gives me good service I'm happy to endorse them.

Jatt

I don't think it's much use trying to get it cheaper. I think it is a closed shop with the gas companies. It is probably all about bulk, if you use enough you may get it a bit cheaper. Not really enough competition.

I think you find that Supagas is the cheapest around certainly the case in S.A.

I tried Supagas as an alternative to my longstanding BOC rental, but the were a little dearer for the same size cylinders (D) so I'll stick to BOC, even though I feel that it's a rip off for the small user. I doubt it's economical any more but to contemplate life without my oxy set is frightening!
Cheers
Graeme

In NZ it might be the same there supagas is the way to go. It works this way you pay a deposit for your bottle or Argoshield say $250 as an example and $100 for the contents the bottle is yours until you decide you no longer need it say 5 years from now then you get your deposit back. You just take it back periodically to get filled and just pay for the gas no ongoing rental which is the killer from BOC. the way it works with supagas If you never return the bottle they dont care.

I use a lot of liquid co2 for paintball and when I hire off BOC I return it ASAP ie get on saturday and drop off monday so I dont get stung with the rental of $30 plus a month.

Andrew

sounds like a good system unfortunatly Supagas over here charge rental same as the others, if they start that system over here there would be a line up at there door

Originally Posted by China

sounds like a good system unfortunatly Supagas over here charge rental same as the others, if they start that system over here there would be a line up at there door

BOC would go ballistic if that happened. It is a closed shop but when CIG (BOC in a prior life) first released the colt 22 oxy welding outfit they sold the cylinders which you could then get refilled as part of the kit. They soon realised their mistake and have never repeated it and very quickly stopped the practise with the colt 22.

CIG had a scheme for non-industrial users in the 1950s where they would rent a pair of size E cylinders for a twelve year period IIRC, for an upfront 120 Pound ($240) fee, which also included being on the list for the CIG publication "Welding News". Cylinders were swapped without a delivery fee, at least in the Sydney area. What a pity the scheme was discontinued.