I stopped by my local Northern Tool today and noticed a sign for Thoroughbred Industrial Cylinder Exchange. Seems they've decided to sell welding gases now.
I picked up a brochure and their gas prices looked good so I asked about it. I was told that they'll exchange a cylinder from any company as long as it has a current test date. If it doesn't they charge a testing fee. He told of a customer that was mad because they charged him $16 for testing but he didn't say whether the fee is different for different sized cylinders.
Their cylinder prices are a bit higher than what I paid a couple of years ago from my Holox dealer but the gas price was about 1/3 lower. It currently cost me about $32 to swap out an 80CF cylinder of C25 at Holox and it cost me $114 to buy it originally with gas about 3 years ago. The swap is only about $21 at Northern but the cylinder price was something like $170 IIRC.
Currently they only sell 3 gases, Acetylene, Oxygen and C25 and I believe they sell and swap 4 sizes of each from the tiny OA cylinder sets up to
125CF. Since Holox and most welding suppliers don't like dealing with the smaller cylinders this could be really helpful for anyone with those, especially since they'll swap them out!I checked the Northern site but they don't mention anything about it so it may only be available in a few stores now. The gas company has a site at
My only concern is what happens if the "gaspony" company goes under. I'd probably be stuck with a cylinder no other company would fill. :-(
Otherwise it looks like a decent deal. Does anyone else know anything more about it or have you heard of the company providing the gas and cylinders?
Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com
"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"