Should You Still Care About Oxy Acetylene Gas?

by Dan Fairchild on Feb 18, 2015


It should be a simple choice for Metal Fabricators…but the devil is in the details

Isn’t Oxy-Acetylene Old School?

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, people continued to use candles.

When the first PC (the Altair) was introduced, people continued to use calculators.

When cell phones started integrating cameras, people continued to use DSLRs.

But in each case, each of the original solutions continued to be useful in a niche.  Candles became useful for setting a romantic mood rather than reading a book. You couldn’t take an Altair with you to class to take a test.  And, if you’re a professional photographer, you would trust your reputation to your iPhone’s camera…even with its gazillion pixels.

The same can be said for the place Oxy-Acetylene currently plays in a Metal Fabricator’s life.

Electric welding processes have almost completely taken over production welding applications. In most cases, an electric welding process which will turn out good welds faster than the oxy-acetylene torch.

If that is true, why bother with oxy-acetylene gas at all?

To paraphrase in the classic movie The Graduate where Mr. McGuire advises to young Benjamin:  OXYFUEL CUTTING.

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Topics: Welding, Oxy Acetylene, Cutting