Oxy Acetylene cutting kit

[Troddenmasses]

There is a note in our local post office offering Oxy Acetylene cutting kit for £125, so I went to have a look. There was a 5ft bottle of oxygen, a 4 ft bottle of acetylene and a 3ft bottle of propane (all empty) as well as 4 regulators, flashback arrestors, pipes (a little worn, but still perfectly useable) and the cutting torch with a new tip. All of this was wheeled around on a trolley.

I quite fancy this, as cutting thick steel is a right pain in the @rse, and I can't afford a plasma cutter. I only have a small garage, and already have a mig welder (thanks to SimonR) so could use tha propane, instead of the acetylene. The only problem would be the enormous bottle of oxygen.

The questions are:

Can anything really go wrong with the cutting head, apart from needing a new tip?

Can I get hold of a small bottle of oxygen relatively cheaply, and have it filled?

Does that price seem reasonable?

I initially offered him £100, and when he said no, I walked away. I'm now having second thoughts. If there is nothing to go wrong with it, and I can get hold of small (knee high) oxygen bottles, I know where to get the propane tanks filled, and think that it might be nice to be able to cut and heat things up.

I know that a lot of people on here have much more experience of this kind of thing than me, so any advice is gratefully accepted.

Thanks.

[Mark]

I would be very wary of having oxy kit in a domestic garage as it will invalidate your house insurance!

Other than that it is very useful kit. There isn't much to go wrong, but i would make sure the pipework is in good order.

I do't know how easy it is to get oxygen but i know that the bottles are usually property of the gas company (BOC or air products) so you can't legally own them!

Not much help I know, but I am sure someone with more knowledge will be along soon!

Cheers

Mark

[Jon White]

You can get bottles of oxygen from Hunter tools in Godalming, on a system where you buy the bottle from them and you then own it. Otherwise the bottles are pretty much worthless as you cant get them filled without a BOC account and you then have to pay rental on them.

Home insurance people are usually ok with oxygen, but they really dont like acetylene at all.

So assuming the bottles are no use at all, frankly I'd have said £100 was expensive, considering you can get a brand new complete set up from machine mart for £200.

HTH

Jon

[keithjh]

I would be very wary of having oxy kit in a domestic garage as it will invalidate your house insurance!

Other than that it is very useful kit. There isn't much to go wrong, but i would make sure the pipework is in good order.

I do't know how easy it is to get oxygen but i know that the bottles are usually property of the gas company (BOC or air products) so you can't legally own them!

Not much help I know, but I am sure someone with more knowledge will be along soon!

Cheers

Mark

You can exchange the large oxy cylinder for a smaller one, at any BOC or Air products dealer (depending which cylinder you have). And in my opinion oxy/acet is well worth having if only for cutting steel and heating up bolts that have been their for years and rusted solid, propane is okay for cutting, heating up etc,but you will need Acet for welding. Though this type of welding to do it properly requires practice.

Or to put it another way if i could only have mig or oxy/acet it would be oxy/acet everytime.

Too many people think welding with a mig is easy and produce very poor welds, bird sh*t is the usual term.

When i was MOT testing i saw thousands of poor mig welds but very few poor oxy/acet welds but as i say it takes longer to master.

As for invalidating insurance, not always correct depending on where the garage is situated in terms to the house, my insurers are aware i have oxy/acet and never been a problem with them.

The cylinders do remain the property of the supplier which is why you need a empty one to exchange for a full one. As for cost of £125 not expensive i think a set sold on E-Blag for £155 last week and the cylinders were empty.

Hope this helps.

regards Keith

[Les Henson]

I use oxy-acetylene gear for all my welding jobs. Takes a lot of practice, but looks good, and some regard it as 'true welding'

Anyway - three gases for cutting? no. Either oxy/acetylene or oxy/propane.

Oxy Propane is better for cutting, but not a good weld.

Oxy Acetylene is better for welding, but slower for cutting.

Cutting thick steel is a slow process, depending on how thick the metal is of course. You can't beat an angle grinder/disc cutter.

There are various factors regarding domestic insurance - if the bottles are for DIY purposes rather than business use. Distance from the house may be important as well.

It's worth informing the local council and Fire service that you have the bottles (the Fire service would want to know what size bottles you have and their fairly exact location on your property.

None of this is a legal requirement - just common sense really.

Interestingly - an oxygen bottle is more likely to explode than an acetylene one.

A full oxy bottle will be between 3000 and 4000 psi, whereas acetylene is 300.

There are few laws regarding the storage and use of welding gases, as it's generally regarded as being business use only and therefore controlled by HSE and fire regulations.

With BOC, you pay a yearly rental and pay a refil charge (you just swap your empty for a full bottle of the same size). With Air products (part of Calor), you 'buy' the gas bottle and pay the same amount again when you get a refil. Which company is best for you depends on how much you use, so DIY-ers may be better off with Air Products. I have full size oxygen and Acetylene, and go through two oxy to one acetylene about every six months.

This type of welding might be regarded as primitive, but it's still the most versatile of welding - you can work the steel as you go. The downside of gas welding is slowness in comparison to electric welding, heat distortion, slightly higher risk of fire. You can hard face, build a corroded surface back up without an unsightly plate, 'work' a weld, so that it's invisible, undo seized nuts/bolts, light your fag, strip paint, warm your pinkies, braze, etc etc etc.

Not that I'm biased, you understand!

Les.

[B reg 90]

One lesson I learned from the HSE stuff at work was not to store it in a building/car or other area where leaking gases can build up. The end results can be explosive! We were shown pictures of an austrialian 4x4 (station wagon patrol I think) that had had burning gear stored over night in the back. The bottles had leaked over night filling the car with an explosive mixture of gases. When the guy pressed the key fob the next morning - one allmightly explosion. The car looked like it had been split open with a can opener and then folded flat onto the road. Knocked out windows for a large distance.

Hence it is good practise to store your bottles out the back of the garage in the free air.

Adrian

[Niall_CSK]

If it doesn't have resettable flashback arrestors on the regulators and BP valves on the handset then it's expensive and I wouldn't use a set without them having seen too many explode in shipyards. This is probably as important as anything if you are not experienced using this kit and please don't use them laid flat on the ground, ever seen a torpedo you will know what I mean

I believe the law has changed regarding bottles, seem to remember a flash from BOC a while back stating that if they weren't registered you wouldn't be able to get them filled anywhere legally till you did. Means that they have to be exchanged / xrayed after ten years if memory serves me correctly.

Have a close look at the cutting hand set to make sure it's the cutting oxygen lever type rather than a lot of cheap asian ones which have a third valve for cutting oxygen, much harder to use. Look at the selection of nozzles for welding to make sure you have some small enough for panel welds, if it's ex structural contractors stuff you might be limited.

[ltwt1981]

Be careful on your household insurance. Nige had issues with his.

[jjojjas]

its about the going rate from what I've seen lately (local to me anyway). Its great for the siezed nuts etc and good for welding obviously (but I prefer mig). Use flash back valves if you get them. You don't want a warm bottle of acetylene.....

I'd disagree with the good welding quote on one of the posts above, I have seen shed loads of steel too poor to weld with mig thats been badly pinned together with gas. If you can't weld it with mig, I'd argue I probably didn't want it on your vehicle....then again, gas welding is less popular these days so you may find that gas welders are possibly more skilled welders...because they have been doing it for so bloody long....

who knows eh........

;-)

Jas

[minivin]

If it doesn't have resettable flashback arrestors on the regulators and BP valves on the handset then it's expensive and I wouldn't use a set without them having seen too many explode in shipyards. This is probably as important as anything if you are not experienced using this kit and please don't use them laid flat on the ground, ever seen a torpedo you will know what I mean

I believe the law has changed regarding bottles, seem to remember a flash from BOC a while back stating that if they weren't registered you wouldn't be able to get them filled anywhere legally till you did. Means that they have to be exchanged / xrayed after ten years if memory serves me correctly.

Have a close look at the cutting hand set to make sure it's the cutting oxygen lever type rather than a lot of cheap asian ones which have a third valve for cutting oxygen, much harder to use. Look at the selection of nozzles for welding to make sure you have some small enough for panel welds, if it's ex structural contractors stuff you might be limited.

As per this:

I brought mine, with two acetalyne regulators, one oxy regulator, hoses, a welding torch, four nozzles for this, cleaning kit for £40. Somewhen will get some flash-back arrestors, new hoses and a porta pack as fancy reminding myself how to braze