Filling your bottles

[scooby_doo]

I am good when filling as I know the history of my kit and I've been doing it for years but others sometimes make me a tad nervous. 99% of people at walkons/big games are no issue but there is always one or 2 who struggle.

I would be happy if games spent 5+ mins going over this stuff, ok so its like preaching to the converted for most but like airline safety demos if even 1 person learns something it is 5 mins well spent by all and no rocket bottles.

But if a site insisted that only a marshal could fill that would be a total ballache if there more than 20 own gunners as it would just be an exercise in queuing for the one available fill point.

 

[Tom]

we have trained marshals at hand to fill bottles from 3k to 4.5k at walkons and any other game day, yet it doesnt stop puddings from trying to fill the bottles themselves and end up getting the bottle stuck on the fill rigs because they dont actually know what there doing, i would much prefer customers fill there own bottles as it would be much less of a faff on, but as stated in the first post, insurance is the reason we cant.

As @BOD says, having staff do it puts the responsibility on you for unknown equipment
Site insurance tends to restrict to site fills on the basis of the control of the filling system and use of rhe site owned & controlled cylinders

Contact the UKPSF and they provide a variety information sources for sites and will have the HPA self fill training resources, forms and 'air pass'card templates
These were adopted a few years ago by scenario events to ensure consistency and 'confidence' in the players ability to self fill
It's a basic familiarisation and demonstration, along with an air safety HPA1 leaflet

 

[Louise]

I've been to places where they fill your marker for you (rental) but i've also been to another where you fill your own (own gear).

Surely if it's your gear they expect you to be able to fill it etc?
If you are a Marshall would/ do you fill someone else's gear?
Has anyone ever had a problem with you touching & filling their precious gear? haha.

 

[Tom]

I've been to places where they fill your marker for you (rental) but i've also been to another where you fill your own (own gear).

Surely if it's your gear they expect you to be able to fill it etc?
If you are a Marshall would/ do you fill someone else's gear?
Has anyone ever had a problem with you touching & filling their precious gear? haha.

Has anyone ever had a problem with you touching & filling their precious gear?

Funnily enough, at our first event (Takhur Ghar in 2007) we were also the first scenario to go live under the UKSPC principles and gave UKPSF HPA fill training. Due to the site insurance/risk assessment (it was purely a rental site until that day) only staff were permitted to use the fill stations, so we could run the training and issue air passes but people could not self fill.
We had concerns about running one primary fill station and a portable generator fill station and coping for a hundred or so scenarioists when all of a sudden we have a queue of people waiting to fill
We came up with the idea of a bottle exchange, the idea that players could hand us a bottle and we would swap for a rental and label theirs to be collected later

We though that no one would hand us their bottle

Quite the opposite, we had major rolling battles taking place and were running up and down the ridge with boxes stuffed with rental and private cylinders.
Combine that with the primary safe zone fill station run by staff and the in game fill station manned by a Marshall * and it was a bizarre success **
* Except for him keeping his radio on vox and blocking the game channel every time he kicked in the generator

** bizarre success but we were never going to repeat that, it was a logistical nightmare that actually worked.

For subsequent events we have ensured that self fill has been possible


Surely if it's your gear they expect you to be able to fill it etc?
If you are a Marshall would/ do you fill someone else's gear?
From a sites perspective they are the employer of the marshalls and are responsible for health and safety, on the risk assessment of a filling station it cannot be guaranteed about the cylinder at the time. All a Marshall can do is give a visual inspection which covers the type/certification of the cylinder, how the condition looks etc (and does the regulator match the cylinder). I have filled other people's cylinders - but generally as an individual to a team mate or to a new player etc, on occasion as a Marshall on the fill station. I'd prefer self filling by a player who has a basic understanding of air safety

 

[Louise]

Has anyone ever had a problem with you touching & filling their precious gear?

Funnily enough, at our first event (Takhur Ghar in 2007) we were also the first scenario to go live under the UKSPC principles and gave UKPSF HPA fill training. Due to the site insurance/risk assessment (it was purely a rental site until that day) only staff were permitted to use the fill stations, so we could run the training and issue air passes but people could not self fill.
We had concerns about running one primary fill station and a portable generator fill station and coping for a hundred or so scenarioists when all of a sudden we have a queue of people waiting to fill
We came up with the idea of a bottle exchange, the idea that players could hand us a bottle and we would swap for a rental and label theirs to be collected later

We though that no one would hand us their bottle

Quite the opposite, we had major rolling battles taking place and were running up and down the ridge with boxes stuffed with rental and private cylinders.
Combine that with the primary safe zone fill station run by staff and the in game fill station manned by a Marshall * and it was a bizarre success **
* Except for him keeping his radio on vox and blocking the game channel every time he kicked in the generator

** bizarre success but we were never going to repeat that, it was a logistical nightmare that actually worked.

For subsequent events we have ensured that self fill has been possible


Surely if it's your gear they expect you to be able to fill it etc?
If you are a Marshall would/ do you fill someone else's gear?
From a sites perspective they are the employer of the marshalls and are responsible for health and safety, on the risk assessment of a filling station it cannot be guaranteed about the cylinder at the time. All a Marshall can do is give a visual inspection which covers the type/certification of the cylinder, how the condition looks etc (and does the regulator match the cylinder). I have filled other people's cylinders - but generally as an individual to a team mate or to a new player etc, on occasion as a Marshall on the fill station. I'd prefer self filling by a player who has a basic understanding of air safety

Amazing! That's really interesting! Thanks for sharing. I've been to sites with only 2 fill stations for the whole day and the queues to fill for people playing were ridiculous! But I totally understand that it's the way things need to be. Especially if you have kids playing.

 

[Luke Dreelan]

just a quick question although i fill my own bottle what is the best way to fill them as i have seen people do it in different ways the way i was told is to hold the bottle completely upright and then fill

 

[Canon Fodder]

just a quick question although i fill my own bottle what is the best way to fill them as i have seen people do it in different ways the way i was told is to hold the bottle completely upright and then fill

doesn't really matter what way up you hold an air bottle, if you have control over the air flow try and fill it slowly (keeps the bottle cooler and gets a better fill).

 

[Luke Dreelan]

doesn't really matter what way up you hold an air bottle, if you have control over the air flow try and fill it slowly (keeps the bottle cooler and gets a better fill).

cheers

 

[Tom]

Ensure that you hold the cylinder in such a way that the burst discs are not covered - should there be a failure then it will be extremely painfull with a blown copper disk

If filling from empty or from low then run the fill for a short time, stop to wait for a moment and start filling again. This will assist in keeping heat down

 

[Jeff Wealleans]

I've been to places where they fill your marker for you (rental) but i've also been to another where you fill your own (own gear).

Surely if it's your gear they expect you to be able to fill it etc?
If you are a Marshall would/ do you fill someone else's gear?
Has anyone ever had a problem with you touching & filling their precious gear? haha.

Not all the time, some of the newbies may have just bought some gear and need help!