Most scuba tanks are 6061 aluminum and is precipitation hardened at around
200F for several days. Most powder coat needs 250 to 300F for about 20
minutes. Powder coating will weaken a tank some but a reasonable safety
margin for high pressure tanks is at least 3 to 1 so if it exploded the
powder coat may have contributed but there was another fault that was the
primary reason.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"derbyrm" wrote in message
news:1ytDf.521748$084.451397@attbi_s22...
Got some numbers (temperatures) for this one? Without digging out the
data, my impression is that baking the paint happens at a few hundred
degrees F and heat treating at much higher temperatures.

Were the tanks pressurized when baked, or did they blow up later?

Roger

http://home.insightbb.com/~derbyrm

"Capt John" wrote in message
oups.com...

The only thing you have to look out for with powder coating is if the
metal is heat treated. If the metal was heat treated the baking part of
the powder coating process can cause big problems with the integrity of
the metal. This happened on several occasions to people who had scuba
tanks powder coated, they blew up. If their's no heat treating involved
it's probably not a problem.