Like many other shed dwellers of my generation, I had a set of oxy acetylene bottles sitting in the corner ready for a multitude of jobs for quite a few years and found them very handy from time to time. Like 99% of others though, I got rid of them about 15 years ago as both the gas and bottle rental prices went through the roof. Also MIGs have largely rendered oxy welding obsolete, especially when it comes to panel work. I would guess that most panel beaters under 35 wouldn't even know how to light the torch, let alone weld with one
A pity in a way, because I used to really like oxy welding, but you can't argue that the MIG leaves it for dead when it comes to speed and lack of heat distortion.
There are some times though, when a good flame would still be very useful, notably for heating (bending steel, shrinking panels etc) and also silver soldering (as opposed to soft soldering).
I have had a MAPP gas torch for probably 10 years and have found it useful for things like that, but only to a point. It's really only barely hot enough for silver soldering, not hot enough at all for bending anything thicker than about 1mm, and whilst I used it extensively just recently in panel shrinking operations and it does work, a more focused flame would have been much better.
If you're just heating (as opposed to welding or cutting) you can get an oxy/LPG set up which is much cheaper to operate than the oxy acetylene, but you will pay $400 or more for the kit and the hoses need replacing every few years, so for the amount I use it, it could never be justified.
The other option that has been around for quite some time is an oxy/MAPP gas kit using disposable cylinders, which is what my plumber uses these days, but when I looked at them a few years ago they were around $500
Looked again more recently and was wavering when the Bunnings version dropped to $300, but didn't have the spare funds when I was looking.
When I called into SuperCheaap earlier in the week though, with a $30 club credit burning a hole in my pocket and saw a set on special for under $150, I had to take it home
The bottle carrier is pretty flimsy, but to my mind the hoses, regulators and torch is what's importannt and whilst they are all pretty scaled down compared to a normal oxy set, they look to be pretty good quality. Time will tell I guess.
Will also be interesting to see how long the oxy bottle lasts. They say about 20 - 25 minutes with a welding type flame, which will be OK if it's true as I won't be doing any welding with it and will probably only need it for a couple of minutes at a time.
Topic: Tools For Mokes. (Read 5003 times)
