The art of gas welding and Propane welding

Gas welding is a welding process whereby you melt metals to each other by heating them with a flame caused by a reaction of fuel gas and oxygen. The most commonly used method is Oxyacetylene welding, due to its high flame temperature. You will use flux to de-oxidize and cleanse the metal you intend to weld.

Here at our workshop we use a OXYLPG gas mixture, or commonly known as propane. This is similar to the Oxyacetylene welding but the acetylene gets replaced with LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas). This is the stuff you use in your house for the gas stove, although it burns at a lower flame temperature than acetylene, when finally mixed with oxygen into what we call propane it can do the job. It is not a accepted method of gas welding because in the Oxyacetylene welding method the burning acetylene in oxygen creates a cleansing area for the metal. The Oxyacetylene welding burns at a higher temperature as well making it better for welding. You can read more of the differences and why you should use oxyacetylene welding instead of OXYLPG here. I am merrily sharing a tip and experience.

However with us it is a tried and tested method that seems to work perfectly. Some notes will be:

1. you will have to change your mixer to actually mix propane. I made that mistake and could not work for the whole day. A bit of research and talking to the scrap yards who use this method , I finally had the right tool for the job.

2. The fact that we use this only on car bodies is also important as the metal thickness is so little that the flame issue disappears with it.

3. Stay away from precision cutting wit OXYLPG

The secret to this whole process is that you need to set the flame as hot as possible and then patiently and gradually heat your weld surface. Introduce a lot flux before melting your metals together and you will have it done at a way cheaper rate.

The pro's to this change is that I save N$1400 per refill and I have no bottle rental fee. The mathematics add up. The con to this art is that only a very experienced welder with enough patience to relearn will master this art. Precision cutting with propane gas is physically impossible as the flame is larger and not so controlled.

Please feel free to leave you comment and opinions on this matter

Best Regards

Alexander M Serfontein