LPG Oxy welding advice.

[losh1971]

I have an oxy/lpg kit at home. I used it a few times but the oxy was costing me way more than it was to pay someone to weld for me. In the end I handed the bottle in to stop paying rent. I know you can now get bottles for as long as you want if you pay the higher price. But unless you get plenty of use the sums are not worth the initial layout plus oxygen. If you buy a kit don't get an eBay set as the hoses perish after a few years.

 

[shane_3800]

I have an oxy/lpg kit at home. I used it a few times but the oxy was costing me way more than it was to pay someone to weld for me. In the end I handed the bottle in to stop paying rent. I know you can now get bottles for as long as you want if you pay the higher price. But unless you get plenty of use the sums are not worth the initial layout plus oxygen. If you buy a kit don't get an eBay set as the hoses perish after a few years.

I was looking at the harris kits not the Chineseium ones. I'll also upgrade to Ibeda arrestors.

 

[shane_3800]

We have a spray welding kit at work. IIRC it's a whole kit that you have to attach your hoses to as you need to introduce the spray powder into the stream. I honestly can't recall the last time it was used. Probably more than a decade ago. It's much more than simply attaching a different size nozzle to a regular Oxy welding handle.

Probably need to do a bit more research on youtube to figure out what you are getting into. Abom79 probably has video or 2 about spray welding/repairing stuff.

I actually like oxy welding, it's quiet an art when done right, I'd like a kit for home but the bottles are so damn expensive and not justifiable for the odd use.

Yea I've seen abom doing shaft surfacing, we get that done on hubs when the bearings fail and wear them out.

What I want it for is welding exhausts and other cast items.

 

[Immortality]

Then you don't need to do spray welding, just a simple oxy set and suitable filler rod.

My exhaust guy still uses oxy/acetylene on exhausts.

We tried the spray stuff at work for shaft repairs but IIRC it wasn't suitable and durable enough for what we do.

 

[losh1971]

Do you have a cash account at BOC? They have sales fairly frequently and the kits can be bought at a reasonable price there when I looked a few years ago. My kit is pretty good quality but the hoses perished after 6 or 7 years. Yet to replace them as it was 4 or 5 years ago I gave back my D size oxygen bottle still 3/4 full.

 

[Immortality]

Here in NZ you can now buy your own bottle, no sub fees and when it's empty you just go and swap it. Maybe something like that is available in Aussie too? It's not cheap though.

Another consideration is your home/insurance, how does the insurance company feel about having decent amounts of highly flamable gasses and oxidisers stored in a residential environment?

 

[losh1971]

Yeah we have the option to pay a higher amount and avoid ongoing bottle rental. Been a while since I price it up but I remember it being quite a bit more expensive than getting one from BOC. But it would work out cheaper if the oxy got seldom use as oxygen is cheap but its the rental that adds up.

 

[losh1971]

The oxy/lpg is fairly limited. Even heating up an exhaust takes a while with LPG kit compared to acc. If I was to do it over I think I would go oxy/acc now that bottles can gotten without ongoing rental.

 

[DavesSV6Tonner]

https://www.gasweld.com.au/brands/speed-gas-non-rental-gas-bottle-ownership

 

[losh1971]

Yeah still is pretty expensive as I remember $179 for an oxygen alone. But not too bad if you intend to hang onto it for the long-term. I would have spent more that that on quarterly rental at BOC over the years I had mine.