Two totally different questions about five pound carbon dioxide tanks used for carbonation of water ala Richard Kinch's legendary methods.
- My local Praxair & Airgas suppliers are for a 5 pound refill of C02. That price seems high. How much is your local supplier?
- 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?)