Ok got another question about acetylene

[mx842]

When my shop burned to the ground I had probably 6 acetylene tanks of different sizes. They will no longer refill these tanks after they have been in fire. The people at the scrap yard raised cain about several of tanks that was in a load of scrap I took in and said the only way they would take them is if I cut them in half. I'm old now and want to get a little older so I don't think much about taking a torch to them. I did have a small one and after much thought I started to cut it open. It seems to have a tank within a tank and once I burned a hole about 3" long in it there was a small flame that started to to come out of the hole I had cut. the only reason I decided to try it was that the valve had blown out and it was subjected to over 2000 degrees for more than an hour and I figured that anything in there had to have been burned out. This little flame burned for like 15 minutes or so and once I saw this I decided to stop right there. Now I am wondering what to do with all these tanks that the scrap yard won't take.

[Noel]

Did you see what was inside. Like asking them to pay for concrete. Drill some holes to vent, bust up with a sledge, cut open, empty, return the metal to the scrapper.

[mx842]

Well I cut through the outside layer but there looks like it's a second layer about an inch deeper the the outside. The valve blew out and there is an open hole where the valve was would that be enough to vent? I might just get out the AR and vent it with a few rounds of .556 FMJ.

[Sberry]

Throw them in a scrap car.

[Bushytails]

Your local welding shop might take them, either free or for a nominal fee. Places that do hydrotesting and such have to scrap tanks all the time, and will have the connections to do so.

[Helios]

Acetylene tanks should have a porous stone inside them, kind of like concrete I guess. That stone should be saturated with acetone, and the acetylene dissolves in the acetone. That's how they're able to pressurize acetylene tanks higher than 15 psi without risk of explosion...or that's my rickety understanding...sounds like the acetone caught fire on yours.

[Tinker Joe 2]

I did a clean up job at a home site and had several bottles, I cut them in half with a 10" bandsaw, scrap yard saw them but did not say a word, they cut easy also, Joe