oxygen acetylene help

blgoode

blgoode

Joined
Oct 3, 2003
Messages
7,047
I have an almost new O/A set up. I just have the small portable tanks and have a brand new set. Yesterday when setting everything up it was going great. Then In the middle of using everything I noticed the flam get very small.

Now I can not get a steady pressure on the acetylene side of things. When I open up the torch valve my pressure drops to nothing.

Can anyone help out here? I will go back to the gas supplier Monday but I thought I'd troouble shoot it on my end first.

Thanks
 
It sounds like your tank is almost empty. If your pressure is almost 0 with the torch valve empty, that means the tank is gone if the tank valve is open.
 
Peter is right on. Sounds like your just out of gas. I'm guessing you bought the whole set up at Home Depot and if thats the case those are really small bottles and I also wonder if the bottles were filled to the max when you purchased them in the set. A number of years ago I bought a mini set that used the standard size blue propane bottle and the ox was in the same size bottle. I used it once with big expectations, that lasted for about a minute and the ox was gone. Your just going to need to save up and get some bigger bottles for you set......
 
I go with the "rent" style, i guess you could call it. i pay like 20 something bucks to get each bottle new.... then when it runs out just pay more and swap out again. the bottle are about waist high on me (5' 7") not sure what size that is gut for what i do they last pretty long
 
It is so easy to have a bad seal between the tank and the regulators where they screw on. To test once you have a new tank in place, brush a soapy solution around the connections and see if bubbles are produced. It sometimes requires tightening efforts more than once. Frank
 
well, I know there's not a leak.

DaQo'tah Forge-I am going to use it to HT the edge. Its easy to burn the blade but seems to work pretty well. Then I just quench the blade and I have a soft spine and a hard edge.

Man! Looks like a trip back to the welding place. Damn, I wa hping the small bottles would work for the little that I'd be using them. I had it on about 10 min max! Oh well......

Thanks guys.
 
The reason I asked....was that I have the same set-up and found the same problems...

I had to switch to useing my forge to heat-treat the blade before the quench. This is not the best because the spine gets too hot, but it works good enough on easy steels such as 5160.

That first time i tried to heat my quenching oil just like I saw Ed Fowler do in his video. Ed uses his torch to heat the oil to 160 so I tried to do that too....well, Ed must use a ton of gas because it took me about 30 min to heat my oil, (it was about 20 below Zero in my shop at the time) and when I started to heat the blade I ran out of gas.

Here is my advice: As far as I know there is only one reason to use the smaller gas tanks of O/A, and thats because you can send your wife into town to pick up more gas for you . the Smaller tanks are small enough so that she can lift them out of the truck and carry them into the store.


aside from this.....I cant find any reason for me to keep useing them.....(But, darned if this is not a handy reason too when I think about it)
 
I like using the O/A to HT with. So...I guess I have to look into getting a larger set. Looks like I need to find a cheaper way to heat up my oil too. I made a quench tank out of a piece of 4 x 16 square tubing. I may have to heat the oil on my grill and pour it in my tank once hot enough. Doesn't sound too good huh? This is a good forum question........how do you pre heat your oil?
 
I have a torch from Harbor Freight that I think is intended to melt ice. It gives over 2000 degrees and a huge flame. It uses regular propane like my forge and is perfect for edge heating as well as heating oil etc. Cost $17.00 on sale.
 
<Quote>
blgoode I like using the O/A to HT with. So...I guess I have to look into getting a larger set. Looks like I need to find a cheaper way to heat up my oil too. I made a quench tank out of a piece of 4 x 16 square tubing. I may have to heat the oil on my grill and pour it in my tank once hot enough. Doesn't sound too good huh? This is a good forum question........how do you pre heat your oil?

I just put a piece of steel in the forge as it's heating up for heat treating and use that to heat the oil. No cost!
Cheaply, Lynn
 
Peter, can you find the torch you mentioned on the HF website? Sounds like a cool lil' flame thrower!
 
Here it is:
OOPs that didn't work
Item number 36346-OVGA
91033.gif


http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=91033
 
Decision Time!

Should I just bite the bullet and rent the larger tanks?

I hate that I have everything BUT the tanks.......Thats like a big wanker and a babe and no blood pressure! :p
 
Can you rent the larger tanks. The gas places here will do the exchanges on small tanks but unless you are a large customer, you need to take the large tanks in to have them filled. The large tanks are expensive to buy!
 
I will see about renting...it still seems expensive to rent though...oh we'll we shall see. I like that other torch. I may get one of those!
 
Peter, I must have bought a half dozen of that same weed burner. Also used it pretty much the way it is as a burner for my forge for over a year and still use the valve set up on all my burners now. First time I lite it up I thought I had a jet engine in my hands.
 
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