Propane torch?

Where can I get a decent propane torch head? All I can find are the lousy garbage BernzOMatic things. If it could handle the heat of MAPP, I wouldn't complain.

Reply to
clifto
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your better off buying a MAPP torch at say home depot, MAPP is the only thing to use for joing copper tubing today

Reply to
hallerb

???

If you want to use MAPP, then BernzOMatic has specific torches for that.

CWM

Reply to
Charlie Morgan

I used MAPP with one for about 5 minutes at a time on two occasions. Had no trouble. What problem did it give you, and how long was it on?

Reply to
mm

This might be more than you wanted to spend...

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JK

Reply to
Big_Jake

BTW, to givd a partial followup: This was after people here suggested I bend my flat stock to a 3/4" circumference by heating it with MAPP gas. I found a ratty discarded lawn umbrella with a center shaft that was 3/4". I used that for a fulcrum. The first time, I tugged wrong and it came out crooked. The second time it came out fine.

I want to make the second bend on the motorcycle itself, to get the length exactly correct, so I have to wait until warm weather. I'd rather enjoy myself when I work outside, and the metal will cool off too fast in the winter anyhow.

So I was going to follow up in 2 or 3 months, but so far so good.

Reply to
mm

84 dollars! definitely too much.

Does my propane torch give a significantly lower temp with Mapp gas than a mapp gas torch would?

If not, I'd rather use my propane head until it melts, then buy another just like it.

Reply to
mm

There is the Fire Power brand, but they are not much different than the Bernz o matic, IMO. About $50 and up for a trigger model.

You may want to see what a real plumbing supply house carries as most tend to have a little better quality for their clientele.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

You're not the OP! :-)

I have the $60 version and the smaller tip for more precise control. Great for working in tight spaces or awkward positions.

JK

Reply to
Big_Jake

No, I'm not. I hope to be one some day.

Ok. I'll wait until I need something like that.

Reply to
mm

I'm all for it, just can't find anything but the BernzOMatics and some really chintzy Chinese knockoffs (which work better but don't last).

Reply to
clifto

The flame regulator is a cheap screw of about 3 pitch that only sort of fits the tapped hole for it. Keeping a constant flame is impossible, no matter how still I hold the torch.

Reply to
clifto

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Thanks. If it's a one-time purchase, i.e. it will last a few years, then it'd be worth the money.

Reply to
clifto

I'll have to try it again and see if I have any of that. I have the standard Bernzomatic torch, plus...

In 1970, my roommate sublet his room, and the girl he rented to let her boyfriend stay there, and together they stole my roommate's dresser that he had had since he was 10, my double bed that I had slept on only 2 times, my deskchair, my elctric drill (which I had replaced the chuck jaws in) and my propane torch, which was from Sears and had an "idle" position and a lever to squeeze and make the flame bigger.

I didn't replace the torch, but last year, 36 years later, I found another one at a hamfest, in like new condition, complete with cardboard box. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well like the first one did. I have to pick a setting and stay there.

I'll have to try both torches again and see if I have either problem.

I don't recall having any problem like that.

Neither of them has a loose screw. The problem with the fancy one is that the valve doesn't spring back, but that's a part you don't have.

Wouldn't a torch like that give the same problem with propane too? Maybe you can borrow someone else's propane torch and see if it works better.

My second roommate had taken a job in DC for the summer, and unexpectedly, I got a low-pay job working for a congressional candidate in Racine and the first District. So no one was there except the girl and her boyfriend. The girl had told me before I left how she would try on bathing suits, then put her clothes on over them, and walk out of the store, stealing them. I should have told my roommate to cancel the deal, but he was leaving the next day, and had no time to find someone else, and we didn't know about the boyfriend.

Apparently the guy used my electric razor too. I foudn the self-coiling cord wrapped tightly around the razor, when it shouldn't have been wrapped at all. It took literally several years for the cord to get back to normal.

This guy was a classmate of mine, I didn't know him but his picture was in the freshman directory, and his home address and phone. This is one of the 10 or 20 best colleges in the country, academically, and I wasn't a great success myself, but I didn't turn into a thief. It was and is a very hard college to get into, so he must have been pretty smart, with good high school grades. I wonder what did him in.

The only drug in those days was pot, and it wasnt' that expensive. So I don't think it was money.

Somehow I foudn out where the guy lived, near the college like I did, and went to his apartment and told his roommates I was supposed to meet him there. They thought that strange since they said he was never there, but they left me alone in his room for a few minutes. I did a cursory search, but was afraid they would catch me, and based on what they said, I figured the stuff wasn't there anyhow.

Later I went by and found his van on the street on the same block. I was on a bicycle, I'm sure. His rear van doors were not locked so I went inside and rummaged around pretty thoroughly, bearing in mind that the smallest thing I was looking for was a 1/4 inch drill, or a propane torch. There was plainly no furniture in the van. Again I was scared he would come back and see me through the windows, but I was more angry than scared, and it didn't take long to search.

Later I was told that I may not have broken any laws, or at least not many laws, at the apartment or van, since I only intended to take things that belonged to me. Self-help. But it's also unlikely he would have called the police since he was the thief. More likely he would hit me a couple times, or more. Rememeber, this was the crackpot who wrapped my razor cord so tightly around the razor. (unless he just did that out of habit with a diffferent sort of cord.)

Oh, yeah, the janitor of my building said he would hear noises from my apartment like he was beating his girl friend, and she was friendly to the janitor when the boyfriend wasn't there, but ignored him, a

60-year old black man, when the boyfriend was there. The janitor went with me to court the first time as a witness. That was when the court was only 2 or 3 miles away (I had a car too.) The second time the court was near the girl about 14 miles away. Too far to ask him to go. But that time, they didn't ask me for a witness.

I first tracked down the girl because she had stolen a case of matches from the strip club she worked at. I kid you not. I borrowed my girlfrien'ds VW beetle and parked outside the place, to follow her home to find out where she lived. They didn't close until 4AM iirc. But i couldn't recognize her, from about 80 feet away.

The next time, I paid the cover, went into the place, sat at the bar, had my one included drink, and watched the show. There were 7 girls and a magician, each for 15 minutes, totalling two hours. Then they started over again, but I didn't stay much longer. One had a good figure but wasn't very pretty, one was very cute but shaped like a little girl, and one had a very good figure and a very pretty face. The other 4 were pretty unappealing, repulsive in fact iirc. The ex-roommate was the first girl, with the figure but the face of a gun moll, not ugly for any special reason, but stern and hard and not pretty or cute or anything good. But she had a good figure and I felt a perverse pride that mine was one of the three good ones.

AFter her act, she went back stage and then came over to talk to me at the bar, in her pegnoir, just like in a Mike Hammer movie. In some ways it was worth the loss of my things just to have a story to tell.

But she woudln't tell me where she lived, and she insisted the guy had all the stuff.

So I went a third night and parked in the same place -- because of the street arrangement, 80 feet was as close as I could get and still face the door -- and waited for them to come out. Either she was off that night or I still couldn't recognize her. So when I saw the cute one who looked like a little girl -- or maybe it was the cute one with the great figure -- and she went around the corner to a sandwich shop, I folllowed her and sat down on the stool at the counter, next to her. And I started talking. And she replied with a fair amount of enthusiasm. I did better than I normally did with girls. I was Mike Hammer again. Tough, charming, and masculine. Unfortunately I was scheduled to leave for Costa Rica in only a week or two, so I had to rush it. Instead of wooing her, or something, I went for what I wanted almost immediately, and asked her to find out the address of my stripper thief. She said yes, but I'm sure she didn't mean it. Strippers have to stick together. I should have offered her money, but didn't want to spend more than had been stolen from me (maybe 45 dollars total.) and didn't think that would really help either.

Later I thought about being Mike Hammer again, with rather decent girls at regular, non-strip bars, but never got around to it. I didn't have enough incentive. And the one above was probably enthusiastic so she could charge me, for an hour or the night. I'm not totally stupid.

Oh, yeah. I kept calling information and a week before I left the city we all lived in, the girl finally had a listing in information. I went to the police again and again got, what's the level below an arrest warrant? Anyhow, they sent her a letter, a summons or something, and right away she called and said she'd talked to her lawyer, haha, and I couldn't do anything. I asked, "That's what you think?", and she said she didn't have any of my stuff. I said I want to see that, so she said I could come over, and I saw my deskchair and retrieved that. I told her I wanted my stuff and she said she knew where the bed was and that she would get it back, and my ex-roommate from DC was back (living in another apartment. He had moved out in June, and it was December now.) and he retrieved the bed a week after I had left. A year later, when I came back from Costa Rica, I sold it to his girlfriend (who had been sleeping on it for a year) for the same 25 dollars I paid for it.

Oh yeah, I was in my car headed uptown to pick up two riders who I just met and who were going to split the driving and gas to Oklahoma, and I was going to Texas, and then park the car and hitchhike to Costa Rica, when I saw the guy thief's car headed south on Lake Shore Drive, a grey van with yellow and black pinch stripes on the front. The only one in town. I thought about driving over the median and following him to find out where he lived. But I might have had to follow him all day, without his noticing, and then it would take a few days with the court for him to receive the mailed summons, and a few days more to get anything, or weeks or months if I had to go to court, and I had to go to Costa Rica. So I did the 'mature' thing, and just kept going north. To pick up those two guys.

Later yet, I was visiting his home town, and called the phone number from the freshman directory. I first verified it with the local phonebook, and there was still a listing with the same last name at that address and phone number. But the man, the father, said he didn't know who I was talking about. I guess the boy had been in trouble before, probably worse trouble. I only wanted to track him down, and didn't say anything to his father about what he had done. I really felt sorry for the parents, and I didnt' want to give them more woes. I wasn't going to ask them to pay what he had stolen, although it was small and they might well have done it. This was 2 or 3 years after he had stolen from me, and their refusal to acknowledge him meant to me that he hadn't reformed.

I have 5 drills now, 1 new in 1975 and the others used, 2 of them repaired by me, and all better than the drill I lost.

And last year after 36 years I found the same model of torch. The valve part doesn't get hot, so maybe I can lubricate it with something and get it working right.

The end, for now.

Reply to
mm

The torches I had were all for propane, except for one fancy two-valve BernzOMatic setup with hoses, for MAPP and oxygen. It was just as bad; even holding the two adjustment screws (I refuse to call them valves), it was impossible to hold anything resembling a constant flame. I realize that when you tilt the propane/MAPP canister that the flame will change; it's not that. The adjustment screws in their stuff are too coarsely threaded and too loose in the tapped hole.

Enjoyed the story, BTW. :)

Reply to
clifto

That's what counts.

I should have written my bio 20 years ago. It would have been called Travels with Mario. Now I'm starting to forget a few details.

Reply to
mm

I've got two Bernzomatic self lighting torch heads. One from Home Depot, and one from my heating and AC supply (the good one has ajustable flame). Both are designed for either propane or Mapp. I don't know why you are having a bad experience. I really love em.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Some torches are "dual fuel", compatible with propane and with MAPP. It appears to me that such "duel fuel" torches are close to optimized for MAPP and burn somewhat significantly on the "rich side" when used with propane.

Torches designed-only or optimized for use with propane will likely have problems with MAPP. If the flame is close to "neutral" with propane, then it will be "oxidizing" with MAPP. Even though this case usually achieves a higher flame temperature with MAPP, an "oxidizing flame" may be unworkable due to tendency to oxidize many hot metals. In addition, an "oxidizing flame" is less stable than a neutral one and harder to ignite than a neutral one - possible additional problems of abusing a torch rated only for propane by using it with MAPP. Other than that, some propane-only-rated torches may well achieve a stable hotter flame with MAPP - likely oxidizing, and possibly also overheating the torch!

Keep in mind that such torches are subject to UL listing in the USA. Their UL listing is not valid while being used with fuels that they are nor rated for or if they suffer any damage from abuse such as being used with fuels that they are not rated for.

Now for a bit of a sidetrack: Torches rated for use with both propane and MAPP are good with the less-common "semi-premium" (my words) propylene. However, I wonder if lack of overt rating for this "in-between fuel" (my words) can cause a liability problem if a torch specifically overtly rated for propane and MAPP while lacking an overt rating for propylene is the once-every-3-blue-moons-1-in-a-bazillion that is good for propane, MAPP and therefore propylene but lacks an overt rating for propylene and goes *blooey* ?

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

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