Harry (finally) lights the torch! ...and etches some zinc off too!

http://www.airbum.com/articles/ArticleZenWelding.html

Back in the 60's (which really isn't all that long ago for some of us), one of
the tomes that was required reading for any-one seeking spiritual enlightenment
and the right to wear a tie-dyed shirt was the book, Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance.

The basic premise of the book was that the spirit of the Buddha (don't get me
off on religion, I was raised Methodist and didn't understand THAT either),
could be invested in things mechanical, like a motorcycle, just as well as it
could in living, breathing organisms. The author, Robert Pirsig, viewed the
motorcycle as a mechanical- spiritual organism and the repair of it as a
religious experience.

Yeah, I know. What does this have to do with welding?

I had totally forgotten the book until the other day when I was chasing the
front edge of a weld bead down into the metal with my trusty Smith airline
torch. My world totally disappeared and was replaced by one the size of a pea
that glistened and flowed at the end of the fiery blue cone of my torch. As I
sat there, postively disappearing into the warmth and liquidity at the very
front edge of the tiny, molten puddle, I suddenly felt as if I, too, was having
a religious experience, albeit, a hot one, but still an experience. It was as if
the puddle was alive and I was trying to train it to do my command. It was no
longer steel and fire. It was something growing that was striving to unite two
pieces of inanimate steel into something with a soul that flies.

"jan olieslagers" wrote

Help help help! Even disregarding the elusive vocabulary of a certain
guru, it is most obvious welding will NEVER be my cup of tea. All of the
above pitfalls were clear to me with only a hacksaw, a screwdriver and a
broom in my "workshop"; actually I am beginning to wonder what keeps me
lurking around here. Sigh.

Oh, and don't forget one of the greatest tricks of all!

Set your torch just right, then snuff it out on a piece of wood, without
turning either gas off. Stick the end of the torch in a garbage bag, and
fill it up. Use a kitchen size, if you fear the big one!

Then, and only if you are in a place where nobody will call the cops when a
loud bomb sound goes off, and you are not in a building where you could blow
windows out, tie the bag off, relight your torch, and stick the flame up
against the garbage bag.

To say that you can expect a really loud bang is possibly the understatement
of the year!

Fun stuff, I tell you!
--
Jim in NC

Harry

A suggestion.

If you have a Comunity College close, check and they will probably
have a course in welding.

Use:

Their gas
Their torches.
Their practice pieces.
Their hands on instructor.

Not expensive and will give you some hands on experience before you
start at home.

The one I went to we basicaly stuck iron together but I still have
that as a back ground and have now welded some alum, etc.

Enjoy the set. Fun to play with and fix and make things.

Big John

************************************************** ********

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:33:01 -0800 (PST), wright1902glider
wrote:

Behold fellow aviators, for I have finally lighted that damned welding
torch that I got for Christmas...last year. Yep, bought a "b" tank and
an empty 40cu/ft oxy. tank off Ebay from Indiana Oxygen Co. Shipped
out next day and items were exactly as described. And free shipping!
Swapped it out at AirGas here in Boulder and paid way too much for the
refills, but... Also got my requisite RG45 rod and shade 5 goggles.
So far so good.

Went home, followed directions, purged, set up, connected, checked,
tested, etc. Turned on gas and sparked. Nuttin. Lady-friend is
standing there with camera in hand freezing, giving me the "Princess
Leia is ****ed at Han Solo" look. Sparked again. Nuttin. Not good,
especially since its Valentine's day and she's waiting to be taken to
dinner. So the torch waits while we have dinner at Olive Garden and
take in a movie (Coraline in case you were wondering, yes it was worth
$19.50).

OK, so I was lighting a torch. Sunday comes and I start checking. Gas
at the tank valves, check. Pressure on both reg. guages for each reg.,
check. Gas at the end of the hoses, check. Gas through the torch body,
check. Gas at the tip??? nope. So I take a close look and remember
VeeDubber's mantra about everything made by H-F. Take it apart. Clean
it out. Adjust it. Put it back together the way it was supposed to
have been. Seems some (insert slur of your choice here) varnished over
the end of the tip and clogged the lil' hole. OH, so THAT'S what that
nail-file and set of feeler-guages in the case are for. They ain't
feeler guages at all. They're tip cleaners. So I file the end of the
tip square, just enuf to get the varnish off. Then a dip in acetone,
followed by poking a hole in the "hole" and repeating with
progressively larger cleaners until all of the varnish has been
removed.

Reattached the tip to the torch body, cracked the valves and
Hiiisssssssss. Sounds good. With torch in one hand and striker in
other, I open the acet. valve, squeeze the sparker and POOF!

Yes my friends, I've made fire! Quickly opened the O2 valve and
adjusted the flame. WOOHOO! Looks just like the book! Called
LadyFriend to come with camera. Shut off torch. She comes out with the
"now???" look. Then its "Hey honey, watch this... hiss, poof, roar,
squeeeee, AAAHHHHHH! (angels singing in background). She takes a few
photos for posterity.

Now, for the really fun part. 50/50 mix of water and muriatic acid.
Add nasty old chunks of galv. fence railing. Bubble, bubble, hiss,
hiss! My future welding coupons go through the whole mad scientist
routine. And I dunno what those fumes were coming off the metal, but
gawd man, don't breathe them! 3 minutes later, one end of each of
piece is etched and zinc-free! Cool!

I'm sure its been done millions of times before, but to me it felt
like a rite of passage. I've wanted a welding torch since I was about
6. Now I've got one. Lookout!

Harry Frey

PS: Thanks VeeDub, Mike H., FighFlyer, and everyone else over the past
8 years.

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"jan olieslagers" wrote

Help help help! Even disregarding the elusive vocabulary of a certain
guru, it is most obvious welding will NEVER be my cup of tea. All of the
above pitfalls were clear to me with only a hacksaw, a screwdriver and a
broom in my "workshop"; actually I am beginning to wonder what keeps me
lurking around here. Sigh.

Oh, and don't forget one of the greatest tricks of all!

Set your torch just right, then snuff it out on a piece of wood, without
turning either gas off. Stick the end of the torch in a garbage bag, and
fill it up. Use a kitchen size, if you fear the big one!

Then, and only if you are in a place where nobody will call the cops when
a loud bomb sound goes off, and you are not in a building where you could
blow windows out, tie the bag off, relight your torch, and stick the flame
up against the garbage bag.

To say that you can expect a really loud bang is possibly the
understatement of the year!

Fun stuff, I tell you!
--
Jim in NC


Wowie ! 32 whoe gallons of WHAM ! Jim, couldn't you advise him to start
small, like maybe a 16 oz styrofoam cup, then covered over with a sheet of
paper and detonated off the bench? Even that is enough to mimic a minor
blizzard with flakes of the white stuff sixteen feet into the rafters.

32 gallons ? I must have been a bit shy in my youth, because I never got
over a gallon lunchbag tied off and dropped on a neighboring workbench -
then do a sudden move to the back of the shop awaiting the fun. But I only
did this to McClintock because he stuffed a piece of turkey skin from HIS
lunch into the nozzle of my mig gun when I wasn't looking.

And the day after that Mac wiped a bunch of peanut butter in the joint where
Jimmy had to start up after lunch.

And Mac also put a cloth soaked in varsol in the half-full 10 gallon
galvanized trash can under my bench while I was up on the bench, inside a
big fit-up . . yeah, it caught.

And the fun continued for a season.

Flash

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

Oh, and don't forget one of the greatest tricks of all!

Set your torch just right, then snuff it out on a piece of wood, without
turning either gas off. Stick the end of the torch in a garbage bag, and
fill it up. Use a kitchen size, if you fear the big one!


You are either really bad at adjusting a torch, or you have never really
done this.

Something as small as a half gallon milk carton can be deadly, and plenty of
bang for the buck. A garbage bag could easily kill someone.

I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.

On Feb 18, 12:01*am, "Maxwell" #$$9#@%%%.^^^ wrote:

Something as small as a half gallon milk carton can be deadly, and plenty of
bang for the buck. A garbage bag could easily kill someone.

Naw. Been there, done that.

But I won't do it again ........ at least not from rag wrapped
welding rod ignitor distance :-)

Fortunately the garage door was open or I'd have been replacing some
windows. Eh? What was that you say? SPEAK UP MAN!

Core fracture on a large (H) homemade rocket motor is much more
impressive. Found out months later the neighbor thought our grill
propane bottle had blown up. The fact that he didn't call 911? Let's
just say he has seen us in action before .........................
Said HIS house didn't get any fall out and he didn't see any flames so
everything was good.
=======================
Leon - still have all fingers and toes - McAtee
..

wrote in message
...
On Feb 18, 12:01 am, "Maxwell" #$$9#@%%%.^^^ wrote:

Something as small as a half gallon milk carton can be deadly, and plenty
of
bang for the buck. A garbage bag could easily kill someone.

Naw. Been there, done that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry Leon, but I don't believe you either, and it's very irresponsible to
spin such nonsense on a public form. Someone might very well try it.

But I will leave it to the general readership to test this myth....

Everyone take an 8 ounce foam cup, and place it upside down on the very edge
of a table. Leave just a 1/4" crack or so to fill the cup.

Put on your safety glasses, I personally recommend a full face shield.

Now start your torch and adjust it for a nice clean, but not lean burn.
Something that gives you the best welding or cutting action.

Gently touch the tip face down on piece of scrap wood or metal. It will pop
and go out.

Now fill the cup for a few seconds.

Withdraw the torch and strike it quickly to light.

Then immediately pass the torch near the edge of the cup. You should be able
to do this in just a couple of seconds.

After experiencing the report of the cup experiment, about 10 times the pop
of a cup type striker, try to imaging multiplying the magnitude of the cup
experiment by 500 and let us know what you think.

For those of you with pacemakers, just pop a well mixed torch with a cup
type striker, and multiply by 5000.

On Feb 18, 9:12*am, "Maxwell" #$$9#@%%%.^^^ wrote:
wrote in message

...

Sorry Leon, but I don't believe you either, and it's very irresponsible to
spin such nonsense on a public form. Someone might very well try it.

Believe what you will. I'm comfortable with what I know.
=======================
Leon McAtee

On Feb 17, 11:17 pm, "Flash" wrote:

Wowie ! 32 whoe gallons of WHAM ! Jim, couldn't you advise him to start
small, like maybe a 16 oz styrofoam cup, then covered over with a sheet of
paper and detonated off the bench? Even that is enough to mimic a minor
blizzard with flakes of the white stuff sixteen feet into the rafters.

The last time I did the oxyacetylene-in-the-bag thing it blew
up in my hand. Either a tiny bit of glowing carbon on or in the tip,
or static electricity between the bag and torch. Anyway, there were a
bunch of us that couldn't hear too good for a week after that. That
was 20 years ago and I haven't done it since.
We used to use a rolled-up paper fuse taped to the tied-off bag
and get well away from it. The concussion is amazing. And we never
used anything larger than maybe a gallon bag.

32 gallons ? I must have been a bit shy in my youth, because I never got
over a gallon lunchbag tied off and dropped on a neighboring workbench -
then do a sudden move to the back of the shop awaiting the fun. But I only
did this to McClintock because he stuffed a piece of turkey skin from HIS
lunch into the nozzle of my mig gun when I wasn't looking.

And the day after that Mac wiped a bunch of peanut butter in the joint where
Jimmy had to start up after lunch.

And Mac also put a cloth soaked in varsol in the half-full 10 gallon
galvanized trash can under my bench while I was up on the bench, inside a
big fit-up . . yeah, it caught.

And the fun continued for a season.

In the shop years ago the practical jokes kept morale up.
Grease--lots of it--in the hearing protectors. Putting a guy's radio
in the cabinet pressure washer (80 degree water with caustic, sprayed
under much pressure), especially if he liked music you didn't.
Bringing an empty chip-dip container and putting Lubriplate in it and
opening it at coffee time with some chips and letting the greedy guys
grab a chip and a big gob of "dip" and scarfing it down. Screwing down
a lunchbox to a bench. Plastic coffee cups: Drill a hole in the bottom
and screw it down. Or drill a tiny hole just underneath the handle so
it pees all over. Or just below the lip so it dribbles down the shirt
when it's tilted. Lots of fun.
The best one: I took some peanut butter to work and clued in all
the guys except the new guy. Went outside into the compound, smeared
some peanut butter on the edge of my boot sole, and went back in. One
of the guys said, "Hey, Dan...you step in something out there?"
I looked at it. "Yeah. Looks like it, huh? Maybe that stupid dog
from the junkyard next door dug under the fence again. Wish he'd poop
in his own yard." I scraped a big gob off with my finger. "Looks like
his." Smelled it. "Think so." Tasted it: "Yup. It's him again." Ate
the rest of it.
The new guy's eyes were the biggest I'd ever seen. "You're
weird! You eat poop! Get away from me!" Took some time for him to
figure it out.

Flash

We had a guy we nicknamed "Flash." Because he was so slow until the
break or quitting time buzzer sounded, whereupon his speed was
amazing.

Dan

Maxwell wrote:
....

I saw a 6' joint of 4" heavy wall pipe launch a dead rat over 1000'.



Now I've heard plenty of gas torch brags, but doesn't this one
just beat the band?

:-)

Brian W