Check for Shield Gas Leaks

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I did some TIG at the house recently.  Made a gate which took me a couple days, a lot of tacking, fitting, welding (I'm slow, but expensive).  Well after I was almost done the second day, I noticed that I had really blown through a full size bottle of argon, which seemed unusual, since I was running the gas low at about 10 cfh Well after I went and got a full bottle I figured I'd better check for leaks, so I hooked it up, and cracked open the bottle valve.  The flow meter ball rose momentarily and fell, which is normal since some gas got pushed into the empty line, but then stopped flowing since the solenoid valve in the machine was closed.  But on closer inspection, the ball was not at the bottom of the flow tube, it was levitated slightly off the bottom, so some gas was flowing somewhere.After a thorough leak check of all the fittings from the bottle to the solenoid, I found and fixed leaks at two hose crimp connectors, and found the solenoid valve itself was fully seating.  I took the valve apart, cleaned it up with alcohol, very lightly coated the plunger and seat with vacuum grease, and that fixed that.Sure wish I was paying better attention when I first started the project, most of the full bottle leaked out while the machine was idle between setup/fitting/tacking/welding.
Reply:I usually keep a bottle of windex handy to do leak checks every time I hook up a new bottle.  Even though, I am not the one paying for the shielding gas, I still like to check.