Believe it or not, I have welded plastic! My cousin had a company that put plastic liners under those huge oil tanks, you see at tank farms! We would lay out plastic sheets about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick and weld them together! For that job, we used a kinda of robot machine. For the ends and little stuff they had a gun that looked like the thing on Ghost busters! Really! We did a lot of plastic welding , hundreds of feet at a time! Bones
The plastic coat hangers mostly used these days are pretty worthless to use with gas welding! The one's made out of metal are not much better then the plastic ones. Even back in the mid 70s coat hangers were pretty questionable to use as filler material for welding. Gene
This is a very neat thread. I've only used O/A for a little bit of brazing, but I can see how it would work well for welding too. Beyond that, I don't really have anything to add. This is the header that I'll be running on my Model A roadster. It's all gas welded, and it's clear that somebody put some time and effort into it back in the day.
Too much carbon in them. Makes them brittle but, if it's all you got, that's what you use. They could have never made that cool documetary about the guy with the English accent welding the broken axle in an OT 4 wheel drive with just a 12v battery and cables while sitting in the middle of a muddy, alligator infested swamp without the coat hanger that just happened to be hanging in the back seat
I go at lucky as well. Our school shit down their minimal "shop" and I got a bunch of stuff for next to nothing and threw in the O/A for free. The O2 tank I couldn't get filled as I didn't have a contract but the A I can get filled anywhere. Cousin works at Medigas and gave me a tank with free fill ups! I recently asked him what happens when he retires...he said just drop it off as they never check.
I enjoyed reading everyone's responses. Usually, I have a smart ass remark waiting in the back of my head when I read something. Not so, now. My experience was from no help and advice and trying to weld on my own to an impromptu lesson at L.A.C.C. Of course, I've read a lot about welding and had done a lot of stick welding, so chasing the puddle and sewing things up is a natural inclination everyone has in trying to bond two pieces of metal. And, like all skills from playing the piano to pin-striping, practice makes perfect. My advice to anyone who buys a kit is to come up with Moola to buy your own tanks. Rent on tanks is no better than paying the vig on a loan. No one has mentioned Silver Soldering, one of those methods of joining that lets you mate brass, copper, or stainless in ways that boggle the mind. And, if you weld sheet metal a five gallon bucket of water and wet rags to surround the weld is quite often the difference between warping something and not. And, yes, gas works when there is no power. A good thing for working away from civilization.
Yep, I bought my own tanks 30 years ago, and even though they are smaller than I would like, I have no regrets. All I have to do when I run out, is run down to the local autoparts wholesaler, and exchange tanks. I have also done the same with my blue gas for the MIG, and Argon for the TIG unit. You mentioned silver soldering, and I enthusiastically concur with your statement. I should add, that there are several grades of silver solder depending on the job you are doing. I keep lots of the soft solder (think most expensive), because it is the most versatile. Bob
I have had private tanks since '69. They are and 80 Oxygen and an R Acetylene, in the 60's the cost to fill was $3.50 and $4.00 respectively. Real spendy, these days.
I did all the welding on the chop on my 48 with gas in 1980 as I didn't have access to anything except the big old Forney stick welder in the school shop. I asked the ag shop teacher about welding sheet metal with a mig one day and he gave me a blank stare as he didn't teach much of any welding on sheet metal. When I went to one of Gene Winfield's metal working classes several years ago he welded two pieces of sheet metal together with a torch and then hammered on them a bit and then ran them though the English wheel. Jeff Spence posted this photo of him (Gene) welding up one of Jeff's rings at a class at Gambino's a few years ago using a torch on FB yesterday. That's good enough for me.
^^^^ Me too. When I moved up here to NorCal the welding shop had no problem exchanging or filling them, I expected to get some kind of static, I always did down in LA. Silver soldering is another great reason to have a nice O/A setup. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Silver soldering (actually brazing, but oh well) is really useful, can be stronger than mild steel if the proper type of joint is used. Also, the high silver content stuff, often around 56%, has a nice, low melting point and can often be used with just a good propane torch - so you don't need the expensive O/A torch, regulators and tanks, for working small items a hand held propane torch using cheap disposable canisters goes a long way.
I started out with GAS welding using dipsticks as filler rod, just make sure you get most of the oil off. After awhile you could put down a pretty nice wide bead. I still have my tanks and gauges but after hearing all of the horror stories about people burning down their garages, I keep them outside in the shed. I have not use them in the past 5 years.
Brazing always seemed a black art. Can be quite strong as mentioned. I had some brass rod samples, knew only that Silver Solder was a close relative. Gas welding can be ideal in sheet metal & exhaust builds
started off with OA in 62 and built my 32 with it didn't get electric till 67 an old Monkey Wards buzz box, which got me through till I got a Blue Syncrowave 12 years ago and all those years of OA sure helped when learning Tig. The OA is still here and gets used when it is needed...........one can't have too many tools....... course now I can't see to well and get the shakes when welding so it is an experience to weld now, ah getting older..........
I’m not sure if this has been mentioned or not, I didn’t read all eight pages of testimonials. But maybe check out David Gardner’s work. He has a primer on gas welding panels without filler. That and heat control leads to some really nice welds that retain pliability. Not hard at all, just takes practice. I think David is on the H.A.M.B. here somewhere. https://www.classicmetalshaping.co.uk/dvd/ Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Worked at a company where we did a lot of silver solder work on the line of chillers we manufactured. We got to use the really good (really expensive) silver with the flux core, wonderful stuff to work with! We had a few assemblies that would get plated, and to make cleanup easier, we would coat the whole thing with silver paste flux beforehand. I've done silver work at home using paste flux to build mountain bike frames and various small projects. Done right, it produces a good strong joint.
I have a good variety of torch supplies. Lots of gas welding handles, also a few cutting heads. I learned gas welding in college and relocated my oil pan drain 5 years ago using a Canton bung. It came back quickly. I also braze and silver solder.
My dad got his tanks in the late 50’s, big ones. I bought a used smallest in the 80”s. Sometime in the 90’s to get my stuff and his filled, shops started “testing “ them by dropping a ring over them. since then it’s all been exchange...speaking of which I’m low on acetylene!
No, but I make judicious use of heat sinks. If I was doing a job where the putty would help reduce the warpage, I wouldn't hesitate to use it. When you mentioned cheating, I was hoping it was some trick that gave you super vision. Bob
Gas welding on sheet metal is just like mig or tig on sheet metal. Get carried away running long beads and you warp the crap out of it. Do short beads and let it cool right and not get it too hot and you stand a lot better chance of having a nice job.
I could not live without my OA rig. It was actually my grandpa's setup that I have added onto. Smiths torches, mostly the old Minneapolis made ones. I actually just bought a brand new in box 40 ish year old kit too. A gas saver makes hammering out shrink in sheet metal much easier.
I was taught to weld sheet metal by an old time (perfectionist) body man, (RIP, Toad), and like what Mr48Chev stated, he taught me never to weld more than 1/2 inch, and then move to a cool area. He also taught me, to have a bucket of water, wet sponge, hammer, and dolly, to correct any warpage when it starts to happen. The longer a person waits to clean up the problem, the more difficult it will be to correct it. Anything that can be used to stop the warpage, should be used. Bob
It just takes practice. I have used my knee on the pedal and my elbow on the pedal depending on the position I am in when welding. Tig will always be my favorite. I do like the O/A also.
Upto about 25 years ago all my welding was done by gas unless if it was 1/4 thick I would use stick A friend showed me how to use gas and from then I picked up as I went on, In my days of bike customising I would choose a gas tank for the look from the side then narrow / lengthen make shallow tunnel all done with gas sometimes if the cut was tight I could flow the two sections together without rods Done loads of gas tanks none of which ever leaked , my latest old school technique that I have learned and enjoy is lead loading body panels
When I started at GM’s locomotive plant in ‘71 they had some water and oil piping that was silver soldered by hand. The welder would hang his torch on the gas saver, that would close off the flow of gas except for a small pilot light. Pick up the torch and you could quickly relight it, it is a convenience for the operator and conserves gas.
It's all I use. I do have a crappy stick welder, but there's really nothing on the car I'd stick weld, and I don't have MIG or TIG, so it's gas for me. Like a lot of you, I first learned in HS, running beads on a coupon. Actually, I learned to braze first, gas weld second, arc weld third. Years later I took a course in welding at the local community college, and we did it all there, gas, stick, mig, tig, even submerged which is really a trip. But in the field, working on heavy equipment, all we used was stick for 90% of everything, and gas for smaller items, tubing, fuel tanks, sheet metal, etc. Also, what we called "wire feed", but now we call inner shield flux core. When we assembled a haul truck out at a mine site it involved a week or more of doing nothing but running beads with the wire feed when building the beds and installing liners. I don't know how many lbs of wire we went through, but much faster than using sticks and stopping to change sticks every other minute or so.
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