Forget the oxy-propane

Not a hope. High pressure oxygen and high pressure acetylene I'm allowed to play with myself. Natural gas though must surely be _incredibly_ dangerous, because I have to get a registered CORGI fitter in to deal with it.

I'll stick with my nice and easily worked-on acetylene or propane, thanks very much,

Why do you think he's talking about mains NG? I'm not sure a domestic supply would have sufficient pressure anyway.

We used to have a 'forge' at school - and the torch with that used town gas and air from a blower. Don't think it got hot enough to melt steel, though.

How else do you get natural gas ? Big cryogenic tank at the bottom of the garden ?

Ditto, ditto. The air supply for the brazing hearth was originally a foot-operated leather bellows, only upgraded to an electric blower in about 1966.

The forge would though (memories of negligent 3rd-formers who turned their centre punches into sparklers...).

Ah - couldn't remember the correct name.

Obviously my school was ahead of the times. :-)

Now there's a point. Who's still got any tools they made at school? I've got a rather nice hacksaw - all polished steel and aluminium - that I was too proud of to use. And a cold chisel.

The small vice I made my brother still uses.

In a bottle just like propane? How is it stored for use in vehicles?

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk:

Still go a small brass dovetail marking gauge. Old 'Mr Smith' (really) couldn't believe that it was actually quite accurate. The only thing I ever made at school that was.

Apart from a few buses, it isn't. Natural gas is a bit of an awkward thing to store.

If you compress propane at room temperature it will liquefy. Natural gas won't, unless you also cool it (down to approximately liquid nitrogen temperatures). So for vehicle use it's stored as "CNG" (compressed natural gas). This needs an expensive high-pressure (200 bar) cylinder and it has relatively small capacity, gas being much less dense than liquids like LPG.

For shipping it around the world, the large tanker ships use cryogenic storage.

Centre punch, depth gauge, inside callipers, tap wrench, garden rake, oh and a small bedside book stand in African mahogany.

Wot - no pot stand? :-)

Terribly sorry but, errrrrr, no ;-)

Ah. At my school both woodwork and metalwork were compulsory for the first three years of secondary school. The first thing everyone made in woodwork was a pot stand. And doting mothers everywhere kept them for ever...

We made a garden dibber as the first thing and ended-up learning french polishing (not of dibbers). I don't think the dibber was ever used (does anyone use them?) and I haven't used french polishing for 40 years.