When should an Oxyacetylene Torch be used?

Given the ability of oxyacetylene to carry out welds of ferrous metals such as steel and stainless steel, as well as being able to cut them, heat them for being, and perform brazing welds, the question might naturally arise as to whether or not there is any use for an arc welder – such as a MIG or TIG welder – outside a large workshop.

The answer is that there many circumstances in which an oxyacetylene welder may work in a technical sense, but is far surpassed in speed and effectiveness by the other types of welding. Judging when to use an oxyacetylene torch and when to employ a standard arc welder of one type or another can be made easier by bearing the following factors in mind:

•    Oxyacetylene welding is only fast and effective on thin pieces of metal, typically those 1/8” thick or less. For thicker welds, an oxyacetylene torch will be very slow, where an arc welder can produce a good-quality, deep-penetrating weld in a much shorter amount of time. When an arc welder is used, it is easier to achieve a high quality of weld on thick pieces of metal, also. Therefore the oxyacetylene torch is best for thin materials.

•    Oxyacetylene welding equipment is more portable than MIG or TIG welders, even wheeled types, and does not need electricity to run. For inaccessible jobs, the gas torch may be the only practicable solution to the need for welding. Alternatively, if the welding job is small and quick, it may not be worth the effort of setting up an arc welder near it, even if it were technically possible to do so, and taking the torch and its bottles of gas to the spot and completing the weld in a few moments may be much preferable to the lengthy setup of an electricity-based welder.

•    In windy conditions, such as outdoors, it may be impossible to make a successful weld in windy weather using an arc welder, because the shielding gas will be snatched away by the wind immediately, causing the filler metal to oxidize and ruining the weld. If it is impossible to shield the welding area adequately and the welding cannot be postponed to a more tranquil, windless day, then an oxyacetylene torch may be used to achieve a solid weld without the need for shielding gas.

•    Much of your use of the oxyacetylene torch will be for non-welding purposes – brazing (which is effectively grand-scale soldering), softening pieces of steel to be bent (a task which arc welders cannot do at all), and similar projects. There is no other tool that which can handle this variety of secondary, welding-related tasks in a single package.

•    Cutting is a primary purpose of the oxyacetylene torch, and by varying the torch tip size as well as the pressure of the oxygen and fuel gas, you can delicately carve through sheet metal or chop powerfully through literally foot-thick slabs of steel, or anything in between.  This cutting power is extremely useful in fabricating metal, which is something that must be done to some extent in any but the most basic of welding projects.