well the thought came after i found a natural gas detector at work in the storage container…doesnt help my rig isnt fully made yet.
you would be better off using compressed air, gauges and soapy water. nat gas detector detects nat gas, might not pick up on butane propane. use audible signals(listen for leaks), spray some soapy water and watch for bubbles.
3 Likes
yeah i did this and i found a few leaks, instead of trying to rewrap with this crappy tape that hardens just after one use…i might get venom ptfe thread sealant and tape and use both. i accidentally bought regular blue monster ptfe im sure i can still use it but i just want it to say butane specifically like how venom does. has anyone used regular blue monster tape, how does it hold up?
1 Like
found this
"The only difference between yellow PTFE (Teflon) tape for gas and the white tape for water and oil is the thickness.
Tape for usage in natural gas lines is required to meet the commercial grade A-A-58092 which is 3.5 mils thick and have a minimum density of 1.2 g/cm cubed. http://www.wbdg.org/ccb/FEDMIL/aa58092.pdf
Thinner tape was not commonly found in the US until sometime in the 1980 when suppliers realized they could sell a roll of thin tape and make more money. This thin tape was not always effective in sealing joints in gas. This was not really a big problem because professional gas installers didn’t use the cheap stuff you got at Lowes anyway.
But times change and someone somewhere decided there needed to be a better way of assuring gas lines were assembled with quality materials. Yellow colored tape was created. The codes in the US are not uniform on this. The yellow color is to indicate this tape is of the approved thickness and density but using the color yellow is not always a requirement. White tape that meet commercial grade A-A-58092 or any other color meets the requirement for gas lines but local codes might specify that it has to be yellow.
I understand that other countries have different regulation on PTFE tape so this account is limited to the US and I am making some assumptions about what drove this regulation, but to the best of my knowledge, this was the case in the US. When I got out of the Navy in 1981 I had in my possession enough Mil Spec tape to do me for 10 years, so I remember well how shocked I was to buy a roll and find the tape was like cheap toilet paper.
Bonus info
- There are application where special TPFE tapes are required.
- Oxygen lines require oil free tapes.
- Breathing air lines require PTFE pastes.
- There is a proper way to install PTFE tapes and the Navy was a stickler for teaching this. Learning these three rules will get you sealing fittings like a pro.
- Wrap the tape so that when you screw the fitting in, this action causes the tape to be wrapped on the fitting, not unwound. That’s clockwise looking at the threaded end for right hand threads. If you are wrapping a left hand thread, you are already a pro.
- Wrap three turns of tape around the threads, stretching the tape tightly as you go. You should still be able to see the threads clearly under the tape. More is not better.
- Wrap the tape around the threads starting three threads down from the end. Never leave any wrapped over the end. Doing so will allow parts of the tape to come loose inside the piping. This can lead to failures down stream if the tape gets stuck in some device. This is particularly true for air lines. It takes very little to plug up and stop an air tool.
- Test your fitting under pressure. Use good quality leak detector or a spray bottle of 409."
5 Likes
Blue monster ptfe tape is actually a higher quality ptfe tape. It’s supposed to be better than the standard yellow gas tape
If I’m not mistaken blue monster is used by several companies making extractors
2 Likes