l have a victor cuting torch l bought as a young fellow . lt,s over 40 years old now . lt still serves me well . The modern torches are probly very safe compared to the older ones. The old torches had a tendency to blow out or go out with a loud pop . lf it went out and it didn,t whistle , no problem. lf it blew out and was whistleing that ment it was burning inside the mixer and the quicker you got the gas off the better. That gas and oxy burning inside could destroy the torch and create alot of other problems in a hurry . Thats how a guy explained it to me many years ago. My victor has done it 3 or 4 times over the years and it sure gets hot in a hurry. Kill the valves at the torch as fast as you can.

 

Transporting tanks with no caps?? do you have a death wish?? blow up a balloon and let it go, Now do the same thing with a 35 pound weight attached to it.

 

I will volunteer some rock solid advice I got long ago -

If you ever see either of the lines on your rig seem to shrivel up and melt from the torch tip back in the direction of your tanks:

If you can do it in time - shut off the main feed at the bottles!

Otherwise:

Run like hell, and pray it has an anti-backflash valve!

The quality of your valve set may save your life some day...

Secondly -

Gas bottles for welding and commercial gasses (such as nitrogen) are typically pressurized to 2000 - 3000 Lbs per square inch.

The ROCKET exhaust created when a valve is knocked off turns a gas bottle into a projectile that would be enviable in a military scenario...

Have you ever had one of those toy rocket sets that you fill part way with water, and then pump up? Kinda like that - only more so.

At Miramar Air Station a few years ago, there was a ruptured filler valve on a tank that was for nitrogen, and measured about four feet by six inches. The filling facility was inside a steel shipping container, relatively thick steel all around for protection, and the doors securely closed. The bottle was at about two thousand PSI at the time.


It punched a perfect six inch round hole in the door, was deflected by something outside, and landed about a quarter of a mile away.

It took a while to find, because it was buried in Ivy...

Got the picture?

~Wolf out...

PS: Amazingly, there were no injuries reported.

 

Just so you know. at 15 PSI acetlyene becomes unstable. at 29.4 PSI acetylene becomes self explosive. i know this because i just learned it last week in my agricultural machinery class at Virginia Tech. Acetylene is stored at 250+ PSI and can be done so because it is dissolved in acetone. just thought you all might want a bit of knowledge that was passed on to me. keep those acetylene regulators below 15 PSI!!!!

VTKerr

 

what i was saying about leaving the regs. on the bottles is that he said that his little bottles didnt have caps so im assuming that they have some sort of mettal surrounding the valves like a propane tank. i was saying that as long as there is some sort of shroud around them i think it would be ok, it would be just like transporting bottles with caps on.

 

I have small tanks. The ace tank doesn't have the threads for a cap and the oxy
valve is bigger than the top of the tank. So there is no way I can transport these with a cap. There is no shround like the propane tanks. To see pics of mine Ebay 3875476677
The handle does come over the front of the tanks.

 

Chris - how long do those tanks last? I have that same setup, minus the tanks. I'm still trying to hunt down a pair, but don't want to get small ones if I'm going to be running to the welding shope after 4 or 5 uses...

Thanks.

 

Where I got them they said about 45 minutes of continuous cutting.

 

Just an added thought on backflow valves. I may be mistaken but don't count on them being a part of your valve set unless it is explicitly stated. Back flow arrestors available at most welding shops can be added between the hoses and the gauges for minimal cost. They won't stop the acetylene fire in a hose once it's ignited but they will prevent the pressure from the oxygen feeding back into the hose and forcing the flame into the gauges where explosive pressure can be generated. I was told the biggest danger is that the acetylene burning at the tank valve will get hot enought to melt the top of the tank or will result in a small explosion that may break the valve off the tank. At that point an uncontrolled flow of pressurized acetylene is released to mix with a large supply of oxygen and the bomb goes off. Same reason you don't want to knock the valve off that tank. Any spark will ignite the gas mixture with devastating results even if the break doesn't result in a rocket launch.

 

from what ive heard, the bolt that holds the top on a big acet tank is ment to melt and let the top off so that it just lets the acet out instead of causing an explosion. no info to back this up but just what i heard

 

As a welding instructor, it has been my experience that people learning to cut with the acetylene torch tend to use a pre-heat flame that is way too large. This results in actual melting of the steel in the immediate vicinity of the cut line. It typically use the smallest preheat flame I can get by with. Make sure the steel is cherry red before hitting the O2 lever and watch your travel speed. With a little bit of practice, cuts that require very little grinding or finishing are obtainable.
Someone already mentioned clamping a piece of angle iron, etc. to the object being cut to use as a guide for the torch travel. That works very well to produce a nice straight line.
When properly operated, the torch will produce edges that look like they have been cut, not melted in half.