Well, because they can be had for $20 - $40 on ebay, I just bought another used steel tank. It's the quickest way to get back up and running this week. I'll be doing the solder repair on the old tank, so it's sitting on a shelf ready to go, when the one I just bought (my third!) innevitably fails.
My proceedure for soldering tanks in the past was to soak and wash out several times during the course of a week (I usually only get to do repair work on weekends anyway) with water and detergent. I'd also do the flame-out test from the safest possible distance, but never fun with a 10 - 20 gallon auto tank.
More recently, an old-timer at work had taught me the exhaust trick. I like the idea, but have never tried it myself. Not sure how I'd "pipe" the exhaust from my pickup to the tank.
Thanks for the thoughts, ol'George. I agree with most of it, but it's just the way the world works today. Thankfully, there still seem to be a lot of guys who know how to turn a wrench, whether they learned it in school or not. Similarly, I've seen some real ugly repair work done by folks a generation older than me, who went thru the obligatory shop class program of the time. I'm not sure all those high school students taking shop in the 1960's absorbed what was given to them, any more than many teenagers today absorb the calculus taught to them. No matter what the future holds, I assume there will always be a self-sufficient few (and then the rest), as has been the case in every generation.
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