I've just had my annual "rental" for a rusty bottle of ArgoShield Lite - anothe £60 for a year (Over the last 5 years I've paid £300!!! Surely I could have bought a damn bottle for that!). That's before I've paid for a filling of the bottle too. Am I missing something obvious but is there a cheaper way of getting the stuff? ArgoSheild is the best I've used, I know people used pub CO2 bottles, but when I've used "neat" CO2 the results arn't as good - is it just a case of grin-and-bear their charges ?

[Edited on 7/1/08 by pmw]

Know any people who work at fabrication places or in industry? People in the trade get massive discounts from BOC. ISTR that at uni they paid something like £20 for a pure argon fill for the tig, and about the same for bottle rental.

If you have some friends they might be able to get you a bottle through work?

David

Ditto, and......

I haven't even used it this year

What the hell, it's only money

Have a pint less one night and you've made it back with interest.

BOC is the only place handy enough for me to use, a lot of folk say Air Products are better.
Is the £60 for a full bottle? I think I'm paying 35-40 for a half size one. The bloke who I see is pretty decent though, he reckons if you're changing bottles more than once every 6 months then you'd be better off with a bigger bottle & if it's less than once a year you should be using a smaller one.
When I snapped the tap one one because it was tight he changed it no questions asked, he could have been a c*** about it.
The thing that bugs me most is the "handling" charge, it's £10 per transaction whether you change 1 or 100 bottles. It means you're better off taking some bottles back with usable gas left if you've got a MIG & Oxy-acetalene like me.

quote:

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Originally posted by hillbillyracer
The thing that bugs me most is the "handling" charge, it's £10 per transaction whether you change 1 or 100 bottles.

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A fair point David Jenkins but it's all automatic, takes him no more than 30secs to input the info, tear the printout off & hand it to me to sign.
I dont suppose it matters that much, the cost would be on the gas or rental otherwise but it's fact they make it cheaper for you to give them unused gas back that I've paid for rather than use it completely & refill each bottle when I've got all I've paid for.

BOC are robbing b*stards and I'm the trade

On the other hand they don't get paid for another 6 months if you have an account!

Still I'd like to find a realistic alternative in central scotland

Thought I'd share this with the group

http://www.adamsgas.co.uk/stat_ind_product.aspx?ctrl=argon

This is what I was quoted

'Thanks for your enquiry.Delivery is sent by next day courier and our prices
are as follows:

Argon / co2 mix (argoshield) £20.99 + vat
Refundable deposit per bottle £40.00
Delivery per bottle £25.00 + vat

The price for delivery includes the price of the empty cylinder coming back
for exchange.

The cylinders are filled to 137bar

The valve size is exactly the same as BOC and everyone else.'


A rather good idea I think.

[Edited on 7/1/08 by Wheels244]

quote:

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Originally posted by hillbillyracer
A fair point David Jenkins but it's all automatic, takes him no more than 30secs to input the info, tear the printout off & hand it to me to sign.

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theres quite a few companies that specialise and are cheaper than BOC .

Shop around