Portable Oxy-Acet Welding Kit

For a first purchase, anybody out there have an opinion on Northern Tool's Tote-a-Torch Oxy-Acet Welding Kit ($315.00)
or a similar set-up ? They offer complete welding package with small tanks for small general welding and cutting jobs.

My only experience is a basic welding course years ago. My needs are purely recreational but would love to mess around,safely of course, and don't want to lug around large tanks of gas, not yet anyway. Thoughts appreciated.
Kestrel n CT

There is no black art to setting the torch. Open the torch valves wide open, acetylene first. Continue opening the reg on the acetylene bottle until the flame jumps off the end of the tip of the torch and stop. Now open the O2 valve on the torch and begin to increase until the flame starts to get that blue hue. You will now see the faint blue feather of excess acetylene, keep going until it just disappears, leaving a nice tight cone. Torch and regs are now set. The creative part comes when you get a regulator that likes to slightly wander, then you have to keep a close check on what the flame is doing (got a set of those at work).

If it is taking too long to heat the metal, your tip is too small. If the torch is crackling and popping, the tip is too big. With the regs set as above it is impossible to screw this up. If you start managing the flame from the handle with the torch valves, THEN it will get a bit more difficult, but the above still applies.

Now for welding thin stuff, you can leave a touch of excess acetylene in there (1/8" long feather) and it will cause the surface to melt just a little before it blows through. Old airplane welders trick. You also run a feather when welding cast iron to keep the carbon content up.

Make sure not to get into an oxidizing flame when welding (feather disappears and the inner cone gets short and dull looking) or it'll ruin your weld. Slight oxidizing works good for brazing, though.

OA welding does take a bit more practice and is a more difficult than other forms of welding. Once you are a good OA welder, you understand HOW to weld and HOW it works. The transfer to other welding methods is immediate and natural and you'll make a better welder.

I like to get somebody started on OA and then give them a few minutes on a TIG machine. The whole process is very similar from the users point of view. The puddle is SOOOOO easy to see and regulate on the TIG that it greatly enhances OA welding skills and learning proper OA welding enhances TIG.

You have also chosen THE most versatile form of welding. The only things you can't weld with OA are the REAL exotics like titanium and zirconium. Right flux and filler rod and you can do anything. With brazing, you can even join dissimilar materials that cannot otherwise be joined. I promise you'll get it, just keep practicing. It's just like playing piano, guitar or anything else... you gotta practice to get it, there is no other way.

Give me a couple of bananas and I can teach a moneky to MIG weld if the machine is set right. A hand of bananas and I can have him stick welding. It'll take several more before he is qualified on TIG. When it comes to OA, even I'm still eating bananas.

I've never heard of this system of setting the flame for O/A welding.

"Now open the O2 valve on the torch and begin to increase until the flame starts to get that blue hue" is unclear to me. Which valve you are opening to adjust the oxygen?

Is this the procedure?

1. Open acetylene valve on torch completely.
2. Open the butterfly valve on the acetylene tank regulator, light torch, adjust butterfly valve to the point where the flame jumps away from the tip.
3. Open oxygen valve (or valves) on torch completely.
4. Open butterfly valve on oxygen tank regulator to set neutral flame.

If this is the procedure for establishing a neutral flame, then each size of tip can have only one pressure setting---the pressure at which the acetylene flame jumps away from the tip. To weld thicker metal you use a larger tip.
Have I got this right?

Thanks, Stan

Welcome to Tool Talk forum, by the way. Your advice is extremely useful and your manner is very agreeable. You are clearly a valuable asset to this site. I'm sure I speak for everyone who needs or appreciates welding advice and information when I tell you that I look forward to seeing you contribute as much as you can.

I know I'm not slow witted so I'm not sure why I'm having trouble getting this method of setting O/A torches straight. Here is what I didn't understand in your explanation: "...and allows you to adjust your flame exactly how you want it with the torch valves." Since you have already opened both the O and the A valves on the torch fully and set to a neutral flame with the regulators, the only adjustment left to you with the torch valves is to turn them down, right?

Why isn't this method more commonly taught? Victor's equipment instruction manual, all the videos I've watched concerning O/A welding, and every instructor at the local Community College I've worked with has taught that you set the pressure of your gases at the regulators (of course) adjusting for different thicknesses of metal within narrow limits, and setting the neutral flame with the torch valves.

I'm not trying to argue with you; frankly, I'll take an ounce of expertise over a ton of conventional wisdom any day of the week. But you're articulate, so maybe you wouldn't mind offering your perspective on why this is the way it's taught if there's a better way.

Also, is there any part of this method that's applicable to O/A cutting? It seems like there wouldn't be since the tips are useable over so much greater a range than welding tips by an adjustment of the oxygen pressure at the regulator, but the method you and Mike are describing took me so much by surprise that I don't feel safe making any assumptions.

All the best, Stan

P.S. I think 6013 rod is more versatile than you describe it. It's a medium penetration freeze/fill rod that does what it's supposed to---which doesn't include being a substitute for 7018 when 7018 is required.

You can back off a bit with the torch valves but too much is inviting backfiring due to reduced tip flow. I just hate when you find yourself between tips, larger one is a bit too much heat and pops if you back off, smaller one is just not quite enough.

OA is pretty much the first thing I reach for unless the parts are huge and thick, then it's a stick. If it needs to be real pretty, it's really fragile or aluminum, I'll go to the TIG machine. I have the flux and can weld aluminum with OA, but it's just so messy and the flux is nasty stuff. It'll eat the part up if you don't get it ALL off.

Mike,

How far will this get me ?
Great advice ! Its been printed and taped to my wall.

Kestrel 'n CT

135Fan covered most of the technical information you'll need (the 1/7 of the acetylene withdrawel rate you can't safely exceed is per hour, if the context didn't make that clear) but I can provide an observation from personal experience. I bought a $100 welding/cutting set (no tanks) from Harbor Freight so long ago that it was when most of their goods were from the other China---Taiwan. The quality of the equipment was adequate to good, but not totally trouble free. Chinese equipment now may be as good as Taiwanese was then, but my opinion is that it's not. The problems involved in owning non-standard equipment might be most extreme when service or repair was required, but that wouldn't be the only time it would be an issue. For instance, if you wanted different size cutting tips, you'd probably be SOL.

I own Smith and Victor oxy-acetylene torches and Harris oxy-propane (they're tools so I'm genetically wired to have to buy more of them than I need) and they are beautifully made. When you consider that these are tools which are built to last a lifetime, and passed on to last additional lifetimes, the additional cost of high quality equipment seems minor.

Some of the best money you'll ever spend is taking a welding class. Do it if you possibly can.

All the best, Stan