Alerted by the Propane thread I was reminded to ask if it is in order to use an Acetylene regulator and piping?
Renting an Acetylene cylinder from BOC got expensively silly for the amount of use it was getting so it has gone back. I still have oxygen available and plenty of propane. I know you can't reach welding temperature but believe cutting and brazing are OK.
Thoughts?
You can weld with it too. But you use a lot of gas. The advantage of acetylene is that it has much higher calorific value. Also there is much more in the cylinder, the gas is dissolved in acetone
Gosh, harry is wrong about something ;-)
It actually has a lower gross calorific value than propane. The advantage of acetylene is that it releases a higher proportion of it in its primary flame, which makes it burn hotter, also it requires only a quarter of the O2 in combustion.
And the regulator/piping?
Don't know about the regulator but I braze with straight propane, I have various vermiculite slabs and bits of firebrick to keep the heat in. ISTR that school or perhaps it was one of the labs I worked in years ago had an air-propane system run off compressed air.
I've actually got one of those:-) Acquired when schools were closing woodwork/metalwork dept. and transferring to CDT. There was a motorised air pump attached to the base.
The hoses and the brazing torch are long gone but the swivelling hearth supports an array of brick salvaged from a school pottery kiln. Benefits of marrying a teacher:-)
I've not used it other than for oxy-propane steel cutting but google says the oxy-propane adiabatic flame temperature is over 2800C which is easily enough to melt steel, I imagine the difficulty is that it is too diffuse, your weld pool would be big and uncontrollable unlike the oxy-acetylene which has the bright blue concentrated hot zone.
We used a propane regulator and hose to the ordinary cutting torch but I guess the nozzle was dedicated for oxy-propane. The expert claimed it gave a more precise cut than acetylene.
A propane air torch has an adiabatic flame temperature of nearly 2000C and there is one with electrically heated air supply to 400C which lifts the temperature by nearly the same amount.
AJH
We also had a very nice little charcoal fuelled forge at school; I only got to use it once (garden trowel). I've often had a fancy to get one, but couldn't justify the space in my present workshop. There's something
*very* satisfying about forging, but for my limited needs I can get by with the big propane torch and firebrick.Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
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