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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

When I first got in the fitters the old timers still used oxy-act on 2 in and under, big tip lots of heat fast moving. much faster than arc and great looking welds

I don’t like Oxy acet, and I don’t have to do it, but I like watching man cub. He doesn’t get enough air time. Maybe sometime you can graduate him to his real name.

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

I learned to acetylene weld almost 50 years ago.. We learned fusion welding, welding with filler, etc.. I have used it for many years.. One thing I use to do is weld old wire rope to new wire rope to reeve boom lines on cranes. There was no load on the weld as it just pulled the new rope through all the sheaves (12 parts) and when the new line appeared, we would make it up and the job was done.. I used #9 tie wire as filler and always used Victor torch.. Mike in Louisiana

I started welding a year ago and this was what I first learned lol it helped a lit with tig in the future for sure !

The sound of it is very cool. The power of fire is allways mesmerising.

Great video it's good to know how to weld old school 👨‍🏭

I haven't oxy-acetalene welded in years. In fact, since High School for Ag class. I use them for cutting now though. I currently have a Miller/Smith heavy duty combination torch personality. Don't have a welding tip yet though.

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.

High quality video! I’m taking basic Oxy fuel welding and I honestly love it so far !

Way to go Cub. Nice vid on a worthy process that is too often overlooked. Keep it up. Your cameraguy did a great job too!

Love the oxy fuel welding!

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.

Nice job mancub, easy to follow commentary. Nice job .com team

Great video. I always love to see oxy/fuel welding any chance I get. I enjoy using this almost as much as tig. It keeps you in practice. Thank you. Dan

Excellent video and your welding skills are amazing. Thanks.

I learned how to do this back in the early 80's. This was an easy way to connect new exhaust pipes on my 73 Charger. The hardest thing is getting use to the torch weight. My dad would use coat hangers, amazing!

The welding class I had when going to school to become a Diesel Technician Oxy / Acetyine welding was the first process we were taught tollowed by stick welding and then mig welding. We didn't get a chance to spend much time with Tig welding but it was only a six week course.

I'm a gas welder at a gas utility company in Oregon. I gas weld up to 2" pipe. My test is a 3/4x1" branch and a 2" buttweld uphill. Out in the field we do 1" and 2" butt welds and 1/2" to 1" gas service tee's on 1" to 2" mains as well as 1" and 2" half line stoppers, all on live gas. As far as oxywelding on live natural gas lines, you are constantly on the verge of burning through. I could gas weld plate with my eyes closed.

I'm new to this and self tought,thanks for the "'keyhole" tip.

Can you imagine welding battleships like this !!!

That's pretty cool! I hope I never have to resort to welding with that technique!

Really cool to see a back to basic welding video.... one that doesn't use a tig welder with 75 different settings! Balance, pulse rate, freq... and so on. Well done!!

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

great work i practice this home many times mild steel aluminum and stainless steel i use a carburizing flame to weld stainless steel

Nice work. Old school!

this is my old bosses favorite way to weld, it was his go-to.

Really enjoyed this one lots of good tips!!!!

Just did this yesterday, love this channel so much if I'm not welding I'm watching these videos hahaha

Good video mancub! Let's see some of that oxy welding on aluminum next!!

Back in the day we did all our race car exhausts like this and with coat hangers for filler now u can't use coat hangers there nothing but slobber and slag but also this new exhaust pipe has so many impuritys and galvanizing that you can't hardly even mig it

My favourite discipline in weldeng by far and I never get a chance to do it... cool vid

Oxy was the 1st class in the welding program at my HS/community college. Haven’t touch a torch in too many years. I need to get back to it

Im also learning how weld with a torch right know in college welding class, missed the class last fall. Thats why i asked if you can weld aluminum with a torch

Nice job Oxy-Fuel Welding. I have used the torch almost 60 years to do most of my welding. I would like to see some demos on but welding some 19 and 22 gauge cold roil steel and some 3003 H14 0.50 - 0.62 aluminum. This is the material I have to work with every day in auto body restoration, custom work. The mig makes the welds to large and to hard to work. That is why I use the Oxy-Fuel for welding.

Soon as you mention the name Victor I knew you were the man and you've got the knowledge good video thanks for posting

This is a very enjoyable type of welding !. You can take your time, but at the same time keep your focus razor sharp ^^

calm down broski...you look extremely nervous in front of a camera.....breath!!!!

Good job !! I can see I need to practice oxy fule stuff again.

I Work in Germany for A Heating/Plumbing Company and we Use Oxy Acetylene to weld all of the heating pipes for the buildings we are constructing. I've welded miles of pipe already and also all the heating pipes running to each apartment for floor heating. Germany uses the old school boiler room setup with radiators in the apartments but all modernized. when I construct the boiler room in the basement i have to weld using the right welding technique unlike the Left welding technique done in the video.

Taking a welding class in high school and we are gonna learn to do oxy/ace welding, I’m watching videos seeing how people do it so I have a good idea on what to do to impress chief with my welds.

When I was taught oxy acetylene pipe welding many years ago , flat , vertical up . Horizontal vertical. Butt, branch , also the leftward and rightward method, oh what fun , popping and banging, blowback, sparks in your ears , down your shirt and underwear, many a time you'd set your overalls on fire when you'd got into a comfortable position and didn't want to move , oh and the welding with a mirror when you couldn't see around the backside of a joint ,, all good fun .

I use a 00 to fuse sheet metal for expansion chambers for two stroke racing engines. Run the flame down the joint almost tangent to the weld and dip the cone in frequently. For me it’s faster cleaner and easier than tig. Jeweler fine tips work great for fusing thin sheet metals.

He did great. A little tip toss the line over the shoulder its what works for me helps with controlling the torch and its a little more comfortable. Thank you

That's what i use for welding gun-barrel pipework for heating systems here in Ireland

I wish welding programs would still teach this. Yes, it's obsolete , but imo it's the best initiation to welding you can get(instant feedback on what you're doing wrong/right)

Nice job mancub!

Thank you for this video.. it's little things like know how to hold the torch that help.

Great procedures steps by steps, thank you

Stepping up to the plate Mancub... well done, would have liked to see you set up torch and regulators and pressure setting. Also explain carburizing, neutral,and oxidizing flames. Good to mention not using gloves to move hot stuff, drives me nuts to see others do that. Also the safety glasses info... best wishes, Paul in Orlando

I remember working at Mastco building drilling rigs, sometimes early early mornin, the power would go ou all over the place, we used our oxy acetylene toches on the carbonizing side of flame to light the shop every now and then, hitting the tip to get rid of carbon on a chunk of wood.... damn, ..... I have good memories of the possibility of going home those days... but the light was great.

These vids r def helpful i learned to weld using Oxy/Ace from these vids here

Got a couple gloves like that. Man I love 'me. Best gloves I ever bought

Second thing I was taught was welding cast iron, got real good at it. Only to find out nobody ever uses it any more!

I haven't don't this since high school 16 years ago. We had a contest to see who had the Strongest welds. The machine would pull the two pieces of metal apart until the weld broke and would show how many tons of force it took. I remember getting 2nd place in my class, but I don't remember the specifics of the test (how strong my weld was or anything like that)

Love to see more vids on oxy-acetylene, keep em coming.

The Mancub! Gotta love it. Only thing missing was the end of video flatulence! LOL. Not bad Cub, not bad at all! Now you need to find something that belongs to Uncle Bob and sabotage it! Oatmeal in his umbrella, Vaseline in his welding cap, etc. etc .etc.

Man, I always wanted to learn to do this! It's so cool 😎

Don’t leave a gap in the plates. Butt them up tight, then you can weld them and the only adjustment will be your depth of penetration which sets your travel speed. If you don’t have a puddle in three to five seconds, adjust your heat or get a different tip.

Nice job there !!!!!

Great video!

Great start mancub.

top notch video of the welding

old school cool.

There is a exhaust shop in Kentucky that welds with oxy

Gorgeous weld ! I'm jealous :-)

I'm just going to leave this time stamp here so I'll always know how to start. 4:40

Could ye do a vid on tack welding with stick.maybe on different thickness plates and different positions

This is the first process I learned

Great video. Bob would approve. Relax, your voice sounds nervous, but more time on camera will take care of that. Try holding the flame back a bit. You might get less sparks. Blacksmith knife makers say that those sparks mean that you are burning the blade.

thank god for modern welders

That does not look easy, but boy does it look cool.

Hey do you have a video regarding safety measures and handing those stuff like oxy fuel welding oxygen tank and other things??

Thanks

Question.. I ran some mig beads on a project that I believe had low penetration. Can I take a torch to improve those welds ? Essentially get it to have more penetration and some annealing? Grinding off those welds is not an option.

What’s the difference between this and brazing? Seems like it’s the same except for the filler rod? I’m new to welding and always looking for ways to increase portability vs cost around the ranch. I currently have a few cheap eBay welders which work surprisingly good. Looking to add an oxy welding mix to the tools.

I'd like to some hardness testing and nital etching of the HAZ for an OxyFuel Weld! Some mechanical tests would be cool too.

This process is great for blacksmithing and doing ornamental work. Also great for minor repairs and possibly auto body work if you don't have a tig set up. We were taught this in high school shop class. The biggest advantage is oxy fuel doesn't require electricity. But it's slow. I've heard you can't use propane to weld? Not hot enough? But I can make Damascus steel on my propane forge? What's up with that? I'm an amateur blade smith and blacksmith. My side job. Working to get my welding certifications.

What circumstances would you use oxy over tig in a workshop setting?

I knew a man that could weld a muffler the same way... didn't seem to matter how thin the steel was he could weld it

That's how i first welded back in 1980.

Great video! Can you do a video on oxy-fuel welding aluminum? Thanks!

Wow that is interesting. I don't gap my weld at all on thin steel like that. I would guess that I gas weld more than most hobby welders and I have a very different style to make that weld. I would like to see that weld on a fold over bend test. I think a lot of the backside penetration he thinks he is seeing is cold fall through material.

I will start by saying great video showing process of gas welding. This would have been an opportunity to go into depth why a neutral flame. Is there ever a need to setup oxygen flame, or a carbon flame? Maybe follow up for Mancub.😎