Local Shop

Went to my local pro-shop with a couple of C02 tanks and my 68 Special.  Usually the techs stay until closing, but tonight they weren't there.  There was one guy there that I've dealt with before and he was a nice enough guy.

One of my C02 tanks had a bad pin valve that needed replacing, the other one I wanted converted to a siphon tank.  He goes, "You mean anti-siphon tank."  I said, "No, I need a siphon tank."  He then started to lecture me about how liquid C02 is bad for the seals and valve for markers.  I smiled and explained to him, "That this marker needs liquid C02 to go directly into the valve in order to work, just like the F1-Illustrators, the Icon Z-1 and other markers of the early 90's."  He told me that I was wrong.  I then asked him, "Then why did this marker come with a 7oz siphon tank directly from the factory?"  He told me he'd call one of the techs so he could explain it to me.  I said, "Fine, and while you're at it, call Tippmann too."

So, I listen in on the conversation as he ducked behind a partition.  I heard a lot of, "It's a 68 Special.  What?  Really?  Are you sure?  But I thought..."  Well, he hung up and came back to me and apologized and said something about learning something new.  Took my order down.  Had to leave the 68 Special behind which kind of bothered me since I didn't leave it in the hands of a tech directly.  But hopefully I'll have a 20oz siphon tank for the old beast to play with this season.

Edited by StormyKnight - 25 February 2008 at 9:16pm

The marker has to be present when setting up siphon tanks so they can see the orientation of the tank when it is screwed onto the marker.  That way they know which way to install the tube.  As a gee-whiz thing, keep in mind that siphon tanks should only be used with the marker they were set up for even if it is another marker that uses liquid.

Question for the knowledgeable folks:  Wasn't someone working on a weighted siphon tube a while back that was supposed to always stay at whichever side of the tank was down?

StormyKnight wrote: I know they needed to keep the marker, but I didn't want to leave it in the hands of the 'means-to-do-well' guy I was talking with.

Oh come on, live a little.  Take a gamble.

Actually, I don't blame you at all.

I figured you knew why they were keeping it; but you have to throw the additional information like that in for the youngin's who've never dealt with markers that run on liquid CO2 before.

Yup, even airsmiths arent immune to bad information.

A friend of mine once took a pump gun to a field that for some reason required the ref's to chrono the gun. If I remember rightly, it went something like this.

*Fires the first shot, pulls the trigger again*
"Why wont it shoot? Is it broken?"
"You have to pump it."
"Wait, you mean you have to pull this thing back each time before you can fire? Thats weird..."

Mack wrote: The marker has to be present when setting up siphon tanks so they can see the orientation of the tank when it is screwed onto the marker.  That way they know which way to install the tube.  As a gee-whiz thing, keep in mind that siphon tanks should only be used with the marker they were set up for even if it is another marker that uses liquid. Question for the knowledgeable folks:  Wasn't someone working on a weighted siphon tube a while back that was supposed to always stay at whichever side of the tank was down?

This may be true for an anti-syphon, but not for a syphon tank.

Syphon tanks use a flexible hose with a weight on the end.

Some of my moron co-workers wnated to know what would happen if they put a syphon tank on a rental 98. And then they rented it out...

Mack wrote: That's what I was asking about in the last line of the original post.  I guess that shows how long its been since I had to use a siphon tank. (No age jokes needed at this point.) Thanks for the info.

I wouldn't worry about showing your age Mack.  I'm pretty sure I have a few years on you.