 I'm Sam Nolan, Sales Engineer with NexAir. Today we're going to be discussing cylinder safety and handling. First off we need to understand the difference in some of the cylinders. The compressed gas association has regulated different fittings for different types. 590 being industrial air, 580 being your inert gas, 540 being oxygen, and 320 being your CO2. These different fittings ensure that the proper hoses and connections are always put to the proper cylinder. Nobody wants to confuse your oxygen for your CO2. That's never good. And so it's really important to check along the top of the valves and on your fittings to ensure that they match prior to trying to install them. Never use connectors to install improper fittings together. That just means you're using the wrong regulator or the wrong line. For cylinder safety and handling it's always important to ensure that any caps are tightly fixed onto the cylinders before moving, before handling, and before lifting. When lifting a cylinder you always focus on either using a belly strap or by leaning it forward and tipping it onto a top. Never use an eye hook in these caps. These are bump caps made for side pressure not for lifting. The threads will come off and the cylinder will fall. That is never good when you're dealing with this amount of pressure. Before welding it's always very important to inspect the cylinders. Always look on the outside for any signs of arc burn or any soft spots that could be caused by rust damage especially if you keep your cylinders outside. So whenever you have a cylinder that's been sitting for a while it's always important to ensure that there's nothing built up on the inside of the cap or on the inside of the actual cylinder. So always look for things like spiders, wasps, dirt. Birds love these things for nests so always keep an eye out for anything any debris that could get in there. It's also important if you have a mixed gas to inspect the side of the cylinder for a stamp that says DT. This stands for dip tube. A dip tube is a tube that goes all the way to the bottom of the cylinder and has a lot of holes in it. This ensures that should the gas settle out and the CO2 or oxygen becomes separated from the argon you're getting the proper gas mixture. If a cylinder doesn't have a dip tube stamp it would need to be rolled or burped prior to use to try to get the gas mixture more accurate. However that's not a hundred percent so always look for a dip tube stamp on any mixed gas cylinders. When hooking up a cylinder it's always important after you've ensured that there's nothing in there to start by hooking up your regulator. Start by hand tightening the regulator as far as possible. Always stand on the backside of any valves or openings to ensure that if the gas does come out and there's a failure in the regulator that there's no damage to a person. Especially in oxygen if you have an oxygen regulator do not use it for any other gases especially air a small amount of oil or grease inside an oxygen regulator can cause failure in the whole system. After the regulator is hand-tight it needs to be tightened with a wrench. The wrench tightening should be enough to ensure that there's no leaks however do not over tighten. These are brass fittings they are very easily damaged. Any cross threading could ruin the whole thing and you'll have to replace the fittings themselves. Once this is done you can open the bottle. Start with a small amount of opening to make sure there's no leaks. Once it's done open the valve the entire way. This is a double valve so it will have to seat at the top so it needs to be opened the entire way to get your full flow of gases. Once that's done you can use any knobs or adjustments in a regulator flow meter to ensure that you're getting your proper gas flow but always ensure that there are no breaks kinks or holes in your lines otherwise one your gas is leaking out but two atmospheric air can get into your weld causing contamination porosity and other issues. When you go to take a regulator off a cylinder even if the cylinder is empty always ensure that it's closed all the way first. Once it's closed you can then remove the regulator from the bottle. When removing the regulator from the bottle always ensure that you're standing on the opposite side of any gauges or valves and that you firmly brace the cylinder to ensure that it doesn't topple while you're while you're moving. Also don't stand so close that you might accidentally hit yourself with the wrench when it comes loose because they do tend to break loose suddenly. When you go to move a cylinder empty or full it's very important to ensure one that your cap is all the way on. When the cap is secured all the way on you won't be able to tighten it any further. It also needs to be chained to a dolly or onto a pallet to be moved. Do not roll cylinders across the floor by hand. If you're moving a cylinder and it starts to fall don't try to catch it. This is where the most injuries related to cylinders come from is when people try to catch these. There's nowhere to grab and so you end up dropping on yourself or injuring yourself trying to catch them. So when moving them always use a dolly and always ensure that everything is properly secured.