Hi guys,
I have a need for some intense, very local heat to free off a seized part. I've always had oxy-acetylene gear around; used to have an account with BOC but their prices were a bit too rich for my blood. My mate used to 'liberate' the occasional bottle of gas from work but he went and retired (plain selfish if you ask me . . . ) and now I'm out of gas.
I do my best thinking when I'm walking, and this morning's walk had me thinking about heating these seized parts. Eventually I remembered the carbon arc brazing torch that came with my sparkly new welder 40-odd years ago. I did use the torch a couple of times to do some brazing and it actually did the job pretty well but the carbons were very fragile and hard to source all those years ago - no internet then . . .
Now, a few years ago I 'inherited' a couple of packs of TIG welding tungsten electrodes which I kept 'just in case' as I have no TIG equipment and indeed have never done any TIG welding. I was going City & Guilds welding at a local college years ago and we were due to start TIG the next week when my car got written off by an open BT manhole - meaning I never did do TIG. Or complete the C&G, come to that . . .
We did, however cover the basics on the way to the actual TIG welding, and to the best of my understanding (this was 25+ years ago . . . ) the tungsten electrode doesn't burn away like an arc rod. I remember that they have to be sharpened at intervals, but I don't think they reduce in length during the welding process. Please feel free to correct me on that - I have zero experience of the process and am not ashamed to admit it.
So . . . What I'm thinking is - would it be possible to substitute the carbon rods the brazing torch uses with TIG electrodes? Again, from memory, TIG can be AC or DC (?) My welding set produces AC so polarity wouldn't be a problem, the only difference being that instead of the tungsten producing an arc against the workpiece it would arc against the other electrode.
There is the question of holding the tungstens in the brazing attachment but 10 minutes in the lathe with some brass rod would soon sort that out.
Any thoughts?
I have a need for some intense, very local heat to free off a seized part. I've always had oxy-acetylene gear around; used to have an account with BOC but their prices were a bit too rich for my blood. My mate used to 'liberate' the occasional bottle of gas from work but he went and retired (plain selfish if you ask me . . . ) and now I'm out of gas.
I do my best thinking when I'm walking, and this morning's walk had me thinking about heating these seized parts. Eventually I remembered the carbon arc brazing torch that came with my sparkly new welder 40-odd years ago. I did use the torch a couple of times to do some brazing and it actually did the job pretty well but the carbons were very fragile and hard to source all those years ago - no internet then . . .
Now, a few years ago I 'inherited' a couple of packs of TIG welding tungsten electrodes which I kept 'just in case' as I have no TIG equipment and indeed have never done any TIG welding. I was going City & Guilds welding at a local college years ago and we were due to start TIG the next week when my car got written off by an open BT manhole - meaning I never did do TIG. Or complete the C&G, come to that . . .
We did, however cover the basics on the way to the actual TIG welding, and to the best of my understanding (this was 25+ years ago . . . ) the tungsten electrode doesn't burn away like an arc rod. I remember that they have to be sharpened at intervals, but I don't think they reduce in length during the welding process. Please feel free to correct me on that - I have zero experience of the process and am not ashamed to admit it.
So . . . What I'm thinking is - would it be possible to substitute the carbon rods the brazing torch uses with TIG electrodes? Again, from memory, TIG can be AC or DC (?) My welding set produces AC so polarity wouldn't be a problem, the only difference being that instead of the tungsten producing an arc against the workpiece it would arc against the other electrode.
There is the question of holding the tungstens in the brazing attachment but 10 minutes in the lathe with some brass rod would soon sort that out.
Any thoughts?