Early yesterday morning I discretely tried to cut the base off of an old die cart so that I could scrap the cart - and reuse the super heavy duty castors on a small table that will become mobile. My workshop is located in the garage of my former residence - now my rent house. Over they years I have heard rumors that it is illegal to have welding tanks (mine are commercial size) in a residential neighborhood - I have no idea if this is true or an urban legend. I just try to keep them under cover and only use them with the door closed. I have not used the cutting head much the past few years and am out of practice.
When I tried to light the torch I kept getting a loud popping noise - this was from acetylene only. Not the low key, discrete, 7 am torch job. Once I finally got it lit, there was still an occasional popping noise and numerous flame outs. I varied the acetylene from 4 to 6 psi and the oxygen from 15 to 30 psi. The Harris torch (No. 62-3) was sporting a Harris 3S tip. I tried to clean the tip but was unable to find my tip cleaner - I finally found some MIG wire that was just the right OD to clean out the cutting tip. Eventually I switched to an NTT style 6290 No 1 tip. That seemed to work much better (virtually no popping).
WHat am I doing wrong? I noticed that the mixing head was very warm to the touch - is this normal?