Time to weigh in on canister weight.

Customer feedback, whether it is positive or negative, is always greatly appreciated. With that said… I have recently received customer input that Restek canisters are “too heavy” or “much heavier than the competition”, etc... My hands and arms were telling me this was not so; however, I set out to obtain some objective data. I designed an elaborate experiment utilizing the company mail scale (calibrated) and our 6 L canisters (w/ gauges) and our competitor’s 6 L canisters (w/ gauges) (sorry, I cannot bring myself to type their name, as it hurts my fingers; however, I think you may be able to figure it out) to obtain the following information:

	6 L Canister w/gauge (oz)	Valve (oz)	Gauge (oz)	4 Shipping Boxes (oz)	4 Canister Shipping Weight (incl. boxes) (oz)	Ground Postage from Miami, FL to Dutch Harbor, AK ($)
Restek	88	6.5	4.2	104	456	207.74
Competitor	80	5.7	3.3		424	207.74

As one may see, the Restek canister weighs a mere 8 ounces more than the competition. A closer look at our bigger, more comfortable to grip valve accounts for ~1 ounce of the difference; and a review of our, again, substantially larger and easier to read vacuum/pressure gauge (2” diameter vs. 1.5” diameter) accounts for another ~1 ounce. That leaves 6 ounces to be distributed amongst the canister sphere and the, again, beefier bracket found on the Restek canister.

So… time for some real world implications. What does the 8 extra ounces of beefier, more well-built canister mean for the end user!?!? Well… when shipping 4 canisters at a time in standard shipping boxes the total shipping weight (including the weight of the boxes, which I put on the scale as well) is an extra 32 oz. As you may see in the table (above), the total shipping weight of 4 Restek canisters is 456 ounces (35 pounds) vs. our competitor at 424 ounces (33 pounds).

When you plug the aforementioned information into UPS for shipping from Miami, FL to Dutch Harbor, AK (home to the crab boats appearing on the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch”); ground shipping comes out to $207.74. But when you plug in the information for our competitor’s canisters, the price comes out to… drum roll please… $207.74. The same holds true for FedEx.

So… the relatively higher weight of the Restek canister means absolutely nothing from an economic standpoint. However, I would contend that our sturdier canister would weather a blow from a dropped crab pot far better than our competitor’s canister. At the end of the day, the 8 ounces means our better built, beefier canister will weigh you down a little more than an iPhone does (5 ounces, which everyone seems to be toting around these days). Here at Restek we will be sure to keep this information at the forefront of our minds during any up-coming canister re-designs, and I encourage you to keep the feedback coming in.