Two totally different questions about five pound carbon dioxide tanks used
for carbonation of water ala Richard Kinch's legendary methods.

1. My local Praxair & Airgas suppliers are $38 for a 5 pound refill of C02.
That price seems high. How much is your local supplier?

2. My two-stage tank regulator broke and I wonder if this ever happened to
you.

The white internally threaded inch-long plastic insert that the brass screw
is threaded into broke in half. The regulator still 'works' but the plastic
insert is clearly sheared so that turning the brass T handle has no fine
control.

For fine control, I simply added a $4 HF inline regulator I had handy in my
spare parts kit, so now I have fine tuning but soda carbonation doesn't
need to be fine tuned anyway - you just don't want to go over 150psi
because that's the rating of all soda bottles in the USA.

Next time I buy a two-stage regulator, I'll unscrew the brass handle to see
if it's plastic inside - since that seems inherently a weak material for
such things.

Is your two-stage carbon-dioxide regulator handle screwed into brittle
plastic? (Are they all made that way, or just mine?)

On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 12:59:56 +0000 (UTC), harry newton
wrote:

Two totally different questions about five pound carbon dioxide tanks used
for carbonation of water ala Richard Kinch's legendary methods.

1. My local Praxair & Airgas suppliers are $38 for a 5 pound refill of C02.
That price seems high. How much is your local supplier?

2. My two-stage tank regulator broke and I wonder if this ever happened to
you.

The white internally threaded inch-long plastic insert that the brass screw
is threaded into broke in half. The regulator still 'works' but the plastic
insert is clearly sheared so that turning the brass T handle has no fine
control.

For fine control, I simply added a $4 HF inline regulator I had handy in my
spare parts kit, so now I have fine tuning but soda carbonation doesn't
need to be fine tuned anyway - you just don't want to go over 150psi
because that's the rating of all soda bottles in the USA.

Next time I buy a two-stage regulator, I'll unscrew the brass handle to see
if it's plastic inside - since that seems inherently a weak material for
such things.

Is your two-stage carbon-dioxide regulator handle screwed into brittle
plastic? (Are they all made that way, or just mine?)

Look up the manufacturer and see if they have parts online.
My CO2 regulator is single stage and all metal.