small propane bottle refilling
Got the adapter today and filled 2 bottles. Works...sort of. The brass 1 piece adapter from HF ($17) or Amazon ($11) are the same thing. The OD threads work great into the 20 lb bottle, O-ring sealed with just hand tightness into the 20 lb bottle valve. The small bottle threads leak, no doubt about it. Im not sure if its not seating against the base gasket in the adapter or the 'probe' that goes into the small bottle is too long and is bottoming out before the rubber base gasket in the adapter contacts as read online? The gasket did show tracks of the bottle I screwed on but it never attained a tight leak proof seal. Im sure a wrap with yellow teflon tale would have worked but its not a huge leak and since your doing this outside and not smoking, Im sure its not a big deal. Screw on the fitting and snug it, hardly any is needed to produce a seal. screw bottle onto adapter and open supply tank valve. invert the whole supply tank with filling bottle attached for 60 seconds. Youll see the fitting ice up at the hissing threads. turn back right side up and turn off valve and unscrew the bottle. Done. Some tips are to chill the empties before you refill or pull a vacuum on a manifold set from them. There was a guy that rigged a 90 degree fitting with an isolation valve so all you had to do was thread the small bottle on like a water balloon on a hose bib and turn the valve on, tank was already inverted. He went so far as to defeat the safety valve on the small bottle with a valve stem tool and allowed the small bottle to bleed off the gas until liqued gas was boiling out the valve in order to get a complete fill. Not my idea of a good practice as I have seen the pathetic inverted schreader valve they use on the small bottles. Many reported that after they cracked this valve it would not re-seat or would leak. I agree. This is the design of the official Flame King "refillable" bottle they sell, you can make this with $20 in fittings.
Got the adapter today and filled 2 bottles. Works...sort of. The brass 1 piece adapter from HF ($17) or Amazon ($11) are the same thing. The OD threads work great into the 20 lb bottle, O-ring sealed with just hand tightness into the 20 lb bottle valve. The small bottle threads leak, no doubt about it. Im not sure if its not seating against the base gasket in the adapter or the 'probe' that goes into the small bottle is too long and is bottoming out before the rubber base gasket in the adapter contacts as read online? The gasket did show tracks of the bottle I screwed on but it never attained a tight leak proof seal. Im sure a wrap with yellow teflon tale would have worked but its not a huge leak and since your doing this outside and not smoking, Im sure its not a big deal. Screw on the fitting and snug it, hardly any is needed to produce a seal. screw bottle onto adapter and open supply tank valve. invert the whole supply tank with filling bottle attached for 60 seconds. Youll see the fitting ice up at the hissing threads. turn back right side up and turn off valve and unscrew the bottle. Done. Some tips are to chill the empties before you refill or pull a vacuum on a manifold set from them. There was a guy that rigged a 90 degree fitting with an isolation valve so all you had to do was thread the small bottle on like a water balloon on a hose bib and turn the valve on, tank was already inverted. He went so far as to defeat the safety valve on the small bottle with a valve stem tool and allowed the small bottle to bleed off the gas until liqued gas was boiling out the valve in order to get a complete fill. Not my idea of a good practice as I have seen the pathetic inverted schreader valve they use on the small bottles. Many reported that after they cracked this valve it would not re-seat or would leak. I agree. This is the design of the official Flame King "refillable" bottle they sell, you can make this with $20 in fittings.
