Painting your Cylinder

[Dr Stevil]

What type of paint is suitable for a tatty looking old cylinder (in test I hasten to add!). smooth white Hammerite was my first thought but I'm concerned because it is toxic to aquatic life (long term I guess but its still a concern). Is regular household gloss any good? I guess it would chip & peel very easily. I'm trying to avoid regular car spray paint. All suggestions welcome
Cheers
Steve

[Maltese Falcon]

Good question, after having got two new tanks myself, I am wanting to personalise them and thought a nice logo in paint would be best - but what type?

I thought spray enamel - any of you guys know better?

[Davey Willo]

Be careful guys, I believe that the new European Legislations that are coming into force mean that all 'Breathing Air' cylinders will be marked with a sticker saying so, also another 'Compressed Air' sticker and it will have to be painted with the black and white triangles around the top of the tank.

I'm not sure how this will effect personalised paint jobs

[Maltese Falcon]

Thanks Dave, perhaps we should find out about the regulations and enter into a quick commercial enterprise - I am sure that many people will want them!!

[Dr Stevil]

So...no problems re which type of paint to use?

[Driftwood]

Purple and silver Hammerite?

As long as you leave any paint of such ilk long enough to cure or I'd forsee an indented ring in the new shiney from the cam band compressing non-cured paint (painful past experience after painting a motorbike.....)

[Dr Stevil]

Used smooth white Hammerite in the end, looks fairly tidy, was ok in the pool last night.

[Dominic]

What might be nice as a paint job is some of that highly-reflective stuff they use on road signs. Increase your visibility nicely, that would
"Argh, I shone my torch at my buddy and now I'm blind!!"

[Hobby]

Y'know Dominic I've been thinking about that(dangerous I know but it's a slow process so I'm OK)and I reckon it could become a real DIR no-no.Consider,a major fact against helmets and mounted lights for eg.is this buisness of blinding your mate when he looks at you (if your mates are thick enough to look at your light I reckon they should look after the keys and gaze at the sun)and there may be a point in that somewhere.So if we paint our cylinders/bottles/tanks a nice reflective hue that does as you say this could well follow.I can see the rantings on Techdiver now...."If you can show me that Chevy Yellow isn't dangerous in HID light I'll show my arse in Macy's window!"

[Dominic]

I did wonder about the reflection causing dazzle problems.

But I figure that if car headlights reflected by the reflective paint on roadsigns doesn't cause any dazzle problems, diver torches are unlikely to cause much trouble when reflected off reflective dive cylinders.

Especially when you consider the way the light'd get dimmed by all the silt as well

I came back from two weeks holiday yesterday, and looked at the archive of techdiver mails waiting for me. Decided I couldn't face it, and just wiped the lot