STAINLESS STEEL FIRESTONE MILK CAN.........CADILLAC OR EDSEL?

We have hunted down, bought and sold  hundreds of these beauties in the past years, and had fully agreed with many that they were indeed the "Cadillac" of stainless steel cans.  Which to my knowledge were more commonly used in the Citrus industry than the Dairy Industry.  We have stopped looking for them from "sight unseen" sources and advise our customers and visitors to use precaution when purchasing these on-line unless the seller will stand behind them or you can visually inspect before purchase.  As these cans are serial numbered on the bottom, we always stood behind the ones we sold, as there was no worry of buy / switch and return.

The weakness we found is the bottoms of the cans.  There is no "wear ring" which I'm sure was intended for streamlining and easier to clean and keep clean.  But years of being drug across concrete floors wears these bottoms to the point of leaking or worse being paper thin but still not leaking (for now).  On-line sellers or brokers can advertise that they have been leak tested, but this does not mean they are good cans.

When the bottoms are wore thin they are nearly impossible to repair, not with stainless wire anyway.  We found the only method of repair on some of them was to have them silver soldered, usually making them non-Grade A compliant, but in some areas still usable for Grade B.  Our last purchase of 146 cans resulted in 14 leaker's and 49 thin-outs (bottoms too thin to resell).  These cans came from one equipment broker, but were purchased from all over the country, so it wasn't a case of 1 lot of cans being overused.

If you, like most of our customers, (ourselves as well), actively seek out "MADE IN USA" equipment and settle for used because it's just not made here anymore.  We would recommend the "BUHL" milk cans as they are also high quality and do have wear rings, which may be dented from bumping and dropping, but will not have debilitating "thin-out" on the bottoms.  We have found one USA manf. of high quality stainless steel 5 and 10 gallon milk cans, but sadly at a wholesale price of 303.09, we would be unable to sell them.  So, as most often the case, especially in Dairy Equipment IE: Milking buckets, cans, totes, strainers, separators, churns, etc.   When there is nothing at home to fill demands, we seek out alternatives, which ultimately come from Turkey, India, Greece, China or Tai Wan.

We are always open to new leads on U.S.A. based manufactures, of such equipment, including Mom & Pop operations such as ours!

Feel free to post your opinion or experiences on our message board, to share with other visitors, or share this page with a friend.

Thanks

Bill

Stainless steel Firestone Milk Cans.  Cadillac or Edsel?