Victor 315 rebuild

The shop in Seattle charges around $60 to $75 to do a refurbish.

I kinda figured that range. Thanks. It's working good, but has an occasional pop. Just like to have something like that working right on.

Steve

The achilles heel of Victor torches is the fact that they are "body mixed" torches. With a "body mixed" torch, like a Victor torch, you have 2 tubes going to the head. One large tube of mixed fuel and oxygen, and a smaller tube for the oxygen cutting blast. If you backfire the torch by stubbing out the tip while cutting, you will cause the mixed gasses to ignite inside the torch. This causes the hot gasses to burn back to the valve seats, which makes them leak, hence the popping.

"Tip mixed" torches such as Airco can't do this since there is no mixed gas tube to backfire to the valves. "Tip mixed" torches have 3 tubes going to the head, so the gasses never mix before they get to the tip. In theory you can burn out a head of a "tip mixed" torch, but it is rare.

I love Victor valves on their larger torches, but I prefer Airco style torches.

"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote

Victor is all I have ever seen or used. My last set was a Journeyman Set, $45 at a yard sale, and came with big regulators, lots of hose, and lots of tips. So, I jumped on it. I have always been shy of any other name because of availability of consumables and cost of repairs. But now, I shall look at Airco products differently. I do doubt I will be in the market for a new set in my lifetime, but would definitely jump on a set at a yard sale if I could make a buck.

I got a full set of Generac or Generic, or something like that, when I bought my SA 200. They look like a good Victor knockoff. I am hesitant, though, of putting any money into them, and they do have a couple of problems.

I think the only purchase in the event horizon for me is a small cutting torch. I bought two sheets of 24 ga. paintlock today, and am going to play around with cutting with a 000 tip for a fancy gate.

A plasma cutter is getting closer, too, but after spending around $2,000 today for steel for several projects, it may be a little longer............

Honey wants a lot of things only a plasma cutter can do, so maybe there's wiggle room in the budget..........

Steve

The only way to get real Airco stuff is used. Airco ceased to be about 20 years ago. The company was chopped up. The rights to their torches ended up with Concoa, and Koike.

The patents have since expired so anybody can make Airco style torches.

Uniweld and Harris both make Airco, and Victor style torches. Uniweld also makes Harris style torches

The torch I have been curious about is the Uniweld Airco style torch since Uniweld uses Victor style valves on all of their torches. So you get Victor valves and an Airco head.