Making a hydraulic reservoir

F350Lawman · Nov 4, 2003

Markct

hmm, an old beer keg would make a nice stainless hyd resivor

You are right the just did that on this weeks episode of Monster Garage. It held fine and you can get them in many sizes.

Just get the keg, invite some buddies to watch the game, drink it, forfeit your deposit and ..walla instant reservoir. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Soundguy · Nov 4, 2003

Some of our heavy equipment has an elbow fitting on the top and bottom of the tank, with hose barbs on the 'open' sides.. a length of clear tubing between the barbs shows you where the oil level sets. Some expanded metal makes a good cage around the site tube.

Soundguy

Deerlope · Nov 4, 2003

I am a journey level pipefitter and you may rest assured that all black iron pipe fittings are NOT cast iron. Some are & some are not it depends on what application you are using them for. High pressure steam does use cast fittings as well as some water, oil& gas. Just 2 cents from an old retired pipefitter.

markct · Nov 5, 2003

( Just get the keg, invite some buddies to watch the game, drink it, forfeit your deposit and ..walla instant reservoir.
)

forfeit your deposit!!! thats alot of money, i have been lucky enough to have accumulated a dozen or more of the stainless kegs and a handfull of the aluminum ones from cleaning out houses,curbside trashpickup,the dump and assorted other places. if i bought a keg full of beer you can bet i would turn my keg in to get my deposit back, of course by the time i had drank a keg of beer my thinking might not be all that logical anyhow so who knows i might end up cuttin and welding on that keg too. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

theonlybull · Nov 5, 2003

( I am a journey level pipefitter and you may rest assured that all black iron pipe fittings are NOT cast iron. Some are & some are not it depends on what application you are using them for. High pressure steam does use cast fittings as well as some water, oil& gas. Just 2 cents from an old retired pipefitter. )

agreed, but most that you will find at a hardware store, or just lying around, are going to be cast iron. i've never worked on highpressure lines, nore gas lines, so i didn't realize that that's what they used.

just didn't want some poor guy tryin to weld cast fitting on, without realizing it. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

40Kchicks · Nov 15, 2003

Well guys I finally got that tank welded up. I am running out of time on my project so while I was at the sheet metal shop picking up some other stuff I had them break some 10ga. I then welded the two haves together. I used my plasma cutter to cut the holes for the weldable tank flanges. I had the welder set on high power to assure a good liquid tight seal and almost ruined one flange but it was OK. One other thing, the sheet metal didn’t fit together on the ends perfect so I had to use some tig welding rod to fill the gap. I just laid it in the crack and it worked perfect. The picture shows it unpainted. I will prime and paint it within a couple of days. The rest of the project is coming together and I will be posting that hopefully later in the week. Cost of the tank was about $100. Most of that was the new metal I bought. I didn’t have time to clean my scrap up. The rest was the filter, breather cap, and strainer that I got from Northern tool. Thanks for all the advice.

Eric

JerryG · Nov 15, 2003

Eric,
Looks like a professional job to me. Looks good, I would buy it.

theonlybull · Nov 15, 2003

i assume that's your return line with the filter on it. i hope it goes almost to the bottom of the tank?? if not you'll get air in your fluid, that might cause cavitation /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

JoeJ · Nov 30, 2003

/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif Just my $.02

And kind of after the fact.

But I think I was always told a baffle was a good idea between the outlet and return lines.

Keeptryn · Aug 7, 2007

Nice job, Eric .
Would a used 30# propane tank make a good reservoir ? Lots of them around ...and they already have a pipe fitting bung .
I'm in the process of building a log splitter.