But the one thing that hasn’t been discussed as often is nitrous safety. So, here are some tips on the safety issues involving nitrous oxide. 

 

Let’s start with the “aluminum” nitrous bottle included in most of the kits you see on the market today. There are several sizes and capacity aluminum bottles available. Bottles are rated by how much nitrous they hold in terms of weight—generally in sizes ranging from 10-ounce to 50-pound-capacity bottles.

 

The most common capacity (sometimes referred to as “size”) bottle is 10 pounds. So let’s start here.

 

On the label you see on the face of the nitrous bottle is the “TARE” weight, which designates the empty weight of the bottle and valve without the nitrous oxide. The weight of a bottle valve assembly can also vary up to an extra pound, depending on the manufacturer.

 

You will also see that the label will show the total weight of the bottle when full (filled to rated capacity). This is very important, in that overfilling a bottle, although possible, can have extremely bad consequences. A bottle is designed to be filled to 68 percent of its capacity and must have an “air bubble” of 32 percent to allow for expansion of the nitrous when it gets warm. 

 

Speaking of temperature, when nitrous is discharging out of the bottle, it will be at minus-127 degrees and will freeze-burn you almost immediately! Care should be taken to wear gloves and goggles whenever filling a nitrous bottle.

 

Never put an open flame on the bottle to bring up the pressure. Doing so will begin to “anneal” the aluminum bottle, altering the microstructure of the material and causing changes in properties such as strength, hardness and ductility. If the integrity of the bottle is compromised by using an open flame, it is very possible to blow-up the bottle.

 

Mike Thermos of Nitrous Supply, Huntington Beach, Calif., can be reached at (714) 373-1986.