OLD SKOOL!! Oxy-Fuel Welding (with @mancubwelder)

Mancub is kicking it old school with some open root oxy fuel welding today. We're using the Victor Journeyman Edge 2.0 outfit with a #3 tip.

Talk with Bob, Jason and Mancub!

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EQUIPMENT WE LIKE AND USE IN THE SHOP:

VIDEO SCHEDULE:
MONDAY @ 5:30 PM ET
WEDNESDAY @ 5:30 PM ET
FRIDAY @ 5:30 PM ET

#welddotcom

[Welddotcom]

Don't forget to subscribe and hit that 🔔 button!! Also, make sure to comment and tell @mancubwelder how he did!

[tomharrell]

I learned Oxy/ace welding from an old mechanic when I was in my late teens about 50 years ago. He was in his 60s. He had made many of his tools by hand and hammer on a anvil. He said oxy/ace was all they had when he started and if you could weld with gas you could use anything. At that time there was no MIG or TIG. I watched him oxy-ace weld an engine cylinder back together bore it, hone it and polish it. Then he put the engine back together and it ran for years just fine. He was the chief mechanic at the shop. After a few more years he lost his eye sight but he kept right on working telling us what to do. Trucks came in and drivers told him what the truck was doing or not doing. He told us what to look at. He had the patients of a saint. I wonder how many guys he taught.
I did a lot things with out a clue and was amazed when it was finished.

[guajardosteven]

I'm 26 and at 23 I got into welding after I realized I didn't wanna sit behind a computer, doing graphic design the rest of my career. However all the mig & stick classes were filled at school. So fortunate this happened, I took a metal sculpture class and constantly practiced with gas. Now I'm building truck bumpers with majority of the work being done with oxy. All of my long, hot hours and singed gloves have really made for some sexy fabrication I can't get with a machine. Here's to resurrecting the old school

[stanleyharrell]

Old school or not, oxy acetylene welding works. On the farm, I am not going to spring for a gas powered stick welder when I can load up the gas rig and go knock out a job. For the occasional job away from the shop on the farm, the gas rig works perfectly. It might be slow, but for non production jobs, it is an economical welding option that is independent of power supplies. Battery powered drill with a cup brush to clean the metal and you are ready to weld.

[keithpattison]

60 years ago, I watched my Grandfather weld up a complete shed frame out of 1 1/2" x 1/4" angle, using Oxy as there was no electric welder on site.

[Equiluxe]

When I learnt to weld in the early 1970's, Gas welding is what was taught first, the instructor said that if you learnt gas welding other types of welding would be easier to learn later. I was taught that when setting the gap to leave one end between half and one thickness wider make the first tack at the narrow end and the other end will close to pretty well the correct gap.. I did not get to use a tig welder until the late 80's and due to the gas experiance I pretty well just picked up the tig torch and away I went near perfect tig weld first time so the instructor was correct.

[SPECTRA_S]

Been welding with a double ought tip lately and it is so relaxing and satisfying to make a weld with no filler, no electricity, just a steady flame.

[fergie]

We need more man cub welding I like his personality dude is giving it his all

[WTFChuk]

The pop is caused by one of your sparklers getting up in the tip. The sparklers, in turn, are caused by a flame that is a bit oxidizing at the outer edge. "Traditional" gas welding teaches you to use a neutral flame, but that is actually a bad idea. Neutral flames are always a bit O2 rich at the outer edges. Also, most rigs use single stage regulators, and as the O2 cylinder pressure falls the outlet pressure creeps up, making the flame even more oxidizing. Ideally, you should use 2-stage regulators for gas welding, but when gas welding went out of fashion so did 2-stage regulators. The best practice, whether using a single-stage or 2-stage regulator, is to use a slightly carburizing flame. Say, 1:1 inner cone to acetylene feather length. This won't make the flame rich enough in carbon to substantially carburize the steel, but it will keep the sparkly show down as well as giving you indication (by the constant appearance of a slight acetylene feather) that your flame hasn't drifted into an oxidizing condition.

Another tip: For gas welding thinner material, say 1/4" or less, you will find that an aircraft-style torch with 3/16" hoses is much more comfortable. It's about as close to TIG as you will get with OA. My favorite is the older cylindrical-body Purox W-200, but they have been out of production for many years. If you can find one along with a good assortment of genuine Purox tips, they are great little torches. The forged-body W-200's that were made up until 10 or so years ago were too heavy for prolonged off-hand welding sessions IMO, but their extreme ruggedness made them superb field torches for the HVAC trade. My #2 choice would be the Smith "Airline" AW1A, which is very similar to the Purox and has the advantage of A: Still being in production and B: Still being made in the USA. Another one that is also very similar to the Purox is the Harris 15, which is also a nice little torch, although no longer made in the USA. Finally, there is the Victor J-28. I have never been a huge Victor fan, but they were fine until production got moved to Mexico. Now, quality has gone down, IMO. The one positive attribute is the popularity (which is also a negative, because it has pushed many far better torches out of production), and because of this popularity there are many clones available. Most are China/Taiwanese, but a couple are USA made. One is the Uniweld 71, which looks like the Purox W-200 or Harris 15, but it accepts all Victor J-28 welding tips. Of course, Uniweld makes welding tips for the 71/J-28 as well, not to mention specialty brazing tips for the HVAC trade. If I were in the market for a Victor J-28 compatible torch, the Uniweld would be the one I would probably select. If I were in the market for a new aircraft-type OAC welding torch, I'd go with the Smith AW1A.

[bertkutoob]

Well Well Well! If anyone who wanted to know how it's done doesn't know after watching this video then that person is never going to know.

So much hidden wisdom given almost as an aside like "always use pliers - don't burn your gloves up!"

In Robert M Persig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" there is a passage where he describes an elderly gentleman repairing a cracked chain guard off the motorcycle in the story.

I remember reading that 30 years ago and thinking "I'm going to learn to do that".

Well, I've eventually got all the kit together (albeit of hobbyist quality) and I have a cracked wheelbarrow that needs attention, so this video removes my last excuse remaining...

Well done Mancub Sir. Whoever taught you, he was lucky to have a fine learner.

You done a great job passing it on.

Thank you all.

[gerardorubio]

I learned oxy-ac welding in high school 84-86. i was weld slow but my machine shop teacher was hot and fast. i've welded 2stroke motorcycle pipes with a cutting tip (all he had at the time )and a clothes hanger in my friends garage back then. what ever works for you but learn them both, slow and fast. cool video.

[southronjr]

A tip I discovered using the 3/32 wire is to lay it flat and hold it just above the weld puddle and weave the torch from either side of the filler rod and let the filler drop down onto the weld puddle. It makes oddball angles easier to weld in. I enjoy gas welding because if you can master gas, tig becomes REAL easy and there are time when gas can blend a weld in easier than even tig can such as on thin sheetmetal. Tig will leave you with a great joint but a bunch of material to grind down but gas tends to spread the weld out leaving a smother joint and less to have to grind back. Disadvantage is it creates a large heat effected zone meaning the metal will try and pull around on you if you don't plan for it. Great vid and hope it turns some folks on to the old school way to weld.

[wadewittman]

Awesome job mancub! For not doing this "old" school process for about 10 years, looks pretty good to me.

[blackwaterrepair]

I work in the repair shop at a cement plant. I pull out the oxy acetylene rig when all the welders are being used. My boss always staring at me like show off

[martysomoco]

The “pop” at 3:35 or so may have occurred because your torch tip contacted the molten metal surface. I have been “old-school” oxy-acetylene welding for 40 years. I believe that extending your blue (oxy) flame tip another 1/8 of an inch would provide a helpful margin of error and reduce the possibility of overheating.

Thank you for an informative, instructive video. And, thanks for verifying that the OLD SCHOOL IS NOT DEAD! Lol.

[jacklandismcgowan]

Learned Oxy-Fuel welding at Hobart School of Welding 28 years ago and still use it occasionally. Excellent video 👍👍👍

[jc-h]

It was nice seeing this kind of welding again. I used to work for a CNC router manufacturer where we had machines with aluminum vacuum bed tables for mounting the work. From cast aluminum plate to mounted on the machine and squared to the cutting head took over 24 man/machine hours. My coworker crashed the head into the machine and tried to fix a 1/2" deep x 1/2" hole using a MiG but only made a porous mess. The chief welder of the plant had us mill a larger hole in a cone shape and he used oxy fuel to repair the defect. The repair managed not to warp the top plate where the defect was repaired despite it's thickness only being .7". I remember machining less than .015" before the mill was scratching the rest of the bed.

[marcusavron]

Man cub so nervous on camera. Don't worry, bud, we love you no matter what.

[kadenherzog]

My school has a welding program and in the first class (of 3) you learn stick, oxy cutting, and oxy welding, then you go on to mig, then flux cored and tig

[chrisbeard]

I love this process it's the first I learned when I was 15 and In community College I made a beautiful outside corner joint on 10 gauge steel.