I am a seaman and have done considerable amounts of non-critical rough stick welding and a lot of burning, but never any oxyacetylene welding. I will be going home in a few days and I have promised the old lady a real Texas style barbecue pit, and further promised her a brisket done to perfection, slow cooked overnight and half the day, within a week of getting home, so I am looking at getting my project rolling post-haste. Rather than buying an arc welding setup AND bottles, (I already have a set of regs and a nice little Victor torch) I figure for this little project I would keep the cash outlay down and do the welding with gas, and only have to buy a couple of welding tips.
Only prob is... I have never done any gas welding at all. I have talked to some semi-knowledgeable engineers aboard ship and got little more info than a bit of terminology. In other words, what they won't admit is that they have never done it and only read about it in a semi-historical sense. I found a couple of websites but nothing you could really call a tutorial. I figure I can teach myself to do this well enough to build my pit, in a couple of days, but some pointers would be appreciated.
I am somewhat confused about some terms I ran across that are obviously fundamental to the process...
"The principal techniques employed in oxyacetylene welding are leftward, rightward and all-positional rightward." from
FWIW Hardly any of this project needs to be done with overhead welds. The entire unit won't weigh over a few hundred pounds and so I can flip it whechever way I need.
I understand normal welding uses only 5 lbs or so of acetylene and also oxygen, vs the considerably higher pressures used in burning. Does this mean it is impractical to tee off of the regulators to two different torches, one set up for welding and one for burning? Also, the torch I have is the small Victor, about 3/4 the size of most torches. I love it for burning becaue it is so easy to hold steady and it cuts a remarkably clean line, something I have had a hard time doing with most torches found aboard ship. Now, is this too small for welding, or should I spring for the full size unit? I will be using 1-1/2" angle iron and heavy sheet metal, so I suppose a fairly small tip. Also somebody recommended using ordinary coathangers for the filler rod, with no flux. I have my doubts about this... no flux? And what about the lacquer on the wire? Do people really do this?
I have seen cylinders that are much smaller than the standard size, and especially for the acetylene, it will be easier to transport them (Cause I can't lay it down on its side and there is not enough overhead clearance in the Jimmy for a full height acetylene cylinder) so should I go with the small cylinders? Pros and cons? I could borrow a pickup truck with some finaggling and butt kissing, I suppose, and build something to carry the bottles securely. Also are full size cylinders usually owned by the user, or loaned or rented by the supplier?
Also... is there a faq that might help me?
Email is a spam dump and I have not checked it in years. so replies to the group would be great. TIA!
Robinson