Oxy propane welding kit

[Peter Simpson 3Participant @petersimpson3]

Hs anybody got any experience of oxy propane welding sets. I would been keen to purchase one to silver solder my 5" gauge boiler.

[Peter Simpson 3Participant @petersimpson3]

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

oxy propane is not the great and easy way to silver solder ! If you have no experience in silver soldering then Oxy P will lead you into trouble ! You will nead lots of general heating via air propane rather than the high spot heat that Oxy P will give you, the risk of overheating or burning the work is high. Then there is the costs to consider, the small sets will soon empty the small bottles, and larger bottles cost lots to rent or buy. where are you in the UK ? Good luck Noel.

[Peter Simpson 3Participant @petersimpson3]

Alec Farmer does all of his boilers using Oxy Acetylene. It looks so more user friendly when doing the tube plates. Than a very large Propane torch.

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

So does Nigel at Pendle Steam Boilers….but he wouldnt recomend them to the inexperienced either. The hobby bottles are useless for a 5" boiler. Even with full size bottles a very large nozzle is needed plus a big propane torch (this is why I dont often do big boilers these days) and a lot of either experience or luck.

[Steve FParticipant @stevef]

Hello

There was a really interesting build on the modelenginemaker forum a few years ago. Sadly some of the photos have disappeared. It was about a Conway build. The thread is here **LINK** it's 83 pages. The chap doing the build used OxyPropane and wrote another article about the setup here **LINK**

regards

Steve

[peak4Participant @peak4]

I can't comment on whether it's the right tool for a boiler, but for my own local heating I use oxy-propane, but with the oxy derived from a medical oxygen concentrator.
Second hand off ebay/Gumtree/Preloved etc, you might get one for the deposit price of an oxygen cylinder.
Much loved by glass bead makers, there's info on sites such as Tuffnell Glass.
https://tuffnellglass.com/contents/en-uk/d103.html

I think I paid less than £100 for mine, and already had some cheap second hand valves, flashbacks, torches etc.
N.B. this is for heating only, not big enough supply for a cutting torch.

Bill

[Brian AbbottParticipant @brianabbott67793]

So what's the real difference between oxy propane and oxy-acetylene?

Is it temperature?

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

put very simply YES ! Noel.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, another thing is, you can weld steel with oxy-acetylene, but not with oxy-propane.

Regards Nick.

[Paul LousickParticipant @paullousick59116]

And price. Acetylene is much more expensive that propane. I uses the 20kg swap and go BBQ gas bottle and bought a D size Oxy bottle and only pay for the oxygen (cheaper than renting the oxy bottle)

I recently tried to silver solder 2 steel parts together with a Benzomatic MAPP gas torch and could'nt get it hot enough after 5 minutes and switched to oxy-propane witth my smallest nozzle and small flame and it took less than a a minute.

 

 

 

 

Edited By Paul Lousick on 19/10/2021 05:42:47

[Gerhard NovakParticipant @gerhardnovak66893]

I suppose for a boiler you need a flame with a high energy output like a Sievert 7kW torch to heat the whole area (like one end of the boiler) to the necessary temperature. The advantage of having a larger area at temperature is avoiding tensions in the materials.

Don't underestimate the heat radiation from a red hot boiler and use proper leather gloves or you get nowhere near with the silver solder wire… (solutions are extension of the silver solder wire or positioning the solder together with the flux at the point where it should later be…)

A propane oxy torch (in modelers size like the oxyturbo 90) has very high temperature but rather low energy. So it is perfect for small, local heating or small parts. For my experience welding steel together with a propane oxy set is somewhat difficult. Azetylen would do it. Azetylen is not only more expensive but also more dangerous than propane.

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

BOC will not rent cylinders to private individuals.

I believe I saw Helen from Western Steam demo'ing soldering a boiler with a BOC Porta Pac at the Meriden show a good 5 years ago or longer. She made it look very easy.

[martin haysomParticipant @martinhaysom48469]

Posted by Dave Halford on 19/10/2021 11:47:14:

BOC will not rent cylinders to private individuals.

I believe I saw Helen from Western Steam demo'ing soldering a boiler with a BOC Porta Pac at the Meriden show a good 5 years ago or longer. She made it look very easy.

i think you will find you can

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

I have rented oxy acetylene bottles, Co2 and Argon from BOC as a private individual for the last 50 odd years.

Colin

[donkeyParticipant @donkey]

DAVE

I have rented from BOC as a private individual for 40 years.

brian

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

BOC and Air liquide will no longer allow you to load acetylene into a car – has to be a commercial vehicle with an all steel cab partition.

[Anonymous]

Posted by fizzy on 19/10/2021 13:58:48:

BOC and Air liquide will no longer allow you to load acetylene into a car – has to be a commercial vehicle with an all steel cab partition.

Don't know about BOC but certainly true of Air Liquide. However, it's a company rule not a legal requirement. The HSE website states there are exemptions for private individuals using private cars, albeit with quantity limits. It's one of the reasons I dumped Air Liquide as a supplier.

Andrew

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Posted by donkey on 19/10/2021 13:40:24:

DAVE

I have rented from BOC as a private individual for 40 years.

brian

I was refused co2 at the Coventry depot about 5 years ago

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

Does anyone still make their own acetylene from carbide. Someone I knew many decades ago did, I was impressed with their set up. Or is obtaining carbide now not possible.

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

My reason for not using acetylene anymore was the ramifications of having a workshop fire – a large human exclusion zone is put into place lasting i think two days. Lots of businesses would not be able to trade and lots of familied forced out their home – not something I could live with were it ever to happen.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

In the late 1950s the rail siding at Finmere went up. About a million and one railway sleepers well alight. We could see it from (about 5-6 miles away as the crow flies) while milking the cows. When the milking was finished Dad piled us into the van and off we went to see what it was.

There were over thirty acetylene cylinders on site and half a dozen went off with big bangs. I can remember we were standing close enough to get quite a strong pressure wave. At least two went off while we were there (along with a large crowd of others, being warmed by the fire). A while later a copper brought us a pice of shrapnell which had landed on the road some distance away – further away than we were watching from! It was still hot when he showed us – he still needed leather gloves to hold it. It was about 9” long and as wide as his hand.

Soon after, another one went up and we could see the firemen taking cover – probably too late, but not for descending burning sleeper bits . We departed soon after, when we were told how many bottles were on site….

[David CauntParticipant @davidcaunt67674]

My Dad used to make his own Acetylene in the early 50's and when he cleaned out the dregs it all went down the manhole in our drive. It never occurred to anybody that it would be a problem. I can't imagine how one would dispose of it nowadays.

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

The end product from making acetylene with calcium carbide is calcium hydroxide. This is pretty harmless stuff and occurs naturally anyway. It is used in food preparation (E526)

John

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by John Olsen on 20/10/2021 03:41:56:

The end product from making acetylene with calcium carbide is calcium hydroxide. This is pretty harmless stuff and occurs naturally anyway. It is used in food preparation (E526)

John

Probably not used quite as much these days, but farmers spread lime on soils as a pH regulator. I used to (almost daily) have a chat with the lime kin operator, when collecting the daily sample for testing (around 1970). He had a very ruddy complexion which, at the time, I thought was likely due to his working environmrnt.

Production, back then, was by calcining high grade chalk with coal in a vertical gravity kiln/furnace and hydrating the resultant calcium oxide as it slowly traversed a (largish) screw with water sprayed on. I expect it is produced in gas-fired horizontal tube kilns with cyclone preheaters, these days. Powders, not lumps of chalk, in a ‘relatively’ dust-free environment these days compared to the method back in the middle of the last century.

Edited By not done it yet on 20/10/2021 06:58:54

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