General > General Technical Chat
Old School Soldering
tautech:
--- Quote from: G7PSK on September 10, 2021, 01:34:32 pm ---I have few old copper billet soldering irons some are ex MOD and were unused and wrapped in grease paper when Igot them one is shaped like hatchet and weighs severl pounds. I also have very small one made for electrical work that I purchased brand new in the early 70's from a local electronics shop.
I also have a couple of parafin blow lamps one of which is rather large ex British railways and made for defrosting points.
--- End quote ---
Nice and not very common these days. AFAIK they were for sealing folded sheetmetal seams.
Those new ones should be quite valuable in decades to come.
G7PSK:
Problem with comppresed acetylene is that it can explosivly polyimerise which is why it is used as DA (disolved aceytalene) the disolving agent used is acetone soaked kapoc or some other material.
Disolving it involves coppressing it so it ia wonder that there is not more explosions when filling cylinders.
The HSE rules are based on standards set up by companies like BOC so I guess the reason they pleaded guilty in this case was it was the cheapest option.
I had a fire officer come round the workshop years ago and say you cannot have that cylinder of acetalene in the workshop as it is flammable I pointed out that the whole idea was it burns at very high temperature and the cylinder of pure oxygen nect to it on the trolly was in many ways a greater hazzard as if it leked every thing became highly flammable. He then told me that I had to take both outside when not in use, which is something he already knew I did as I had previously shown him the gas cage outside.Guess these type just havre to have the last word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyacetylene
coppercone2:
acetone is not used anymore, its THF? now. It's a better solvent for many things. Also makes a super great super glue remover (the super glue remover tin squirter in the store is THF and it actually works amazing).. it is also low toxicity and the odor is less noxious then acetone.. but the odor in your acetylene comes from arsenic and phosphine related compounds in trace quantity.
I believe its more stable with THF then acetone also, chemically.. you really wanna do your modern research before fooling around with anything involving acetylene transfers... very dangerous. In fact I recommend not doing it at all, for acetylene I won't use any second hand equipment and I have the welding store do the hoses etc.. its the one gas not worth fucking around with yourself IMO. You can do alot of cool things that are safe with other gases like lens/diffuser backfilling apparatus, plasma, etc.. but none of those gases detonate. Even if you buy all the feed plumbing primo its cheap for a shop.
or maybe it was DMF.. I could be off on the THF. But I think when I was asking about the tanks he said the new ones do not use acetone for some reason... but I asked 5 years ago (for airgas).. the clerk happened to have a welding engineering degree so I talked to him a little bit about the specifics and he I recall him correcting me on the acetone remark when I was asking about how they do tank maintenance and stuff (I happened to have possession of a old out of hyrotest spec bottle that was real nasty looking (I cleaned it up, but I was worried about rust along the bottom that seemed to be penetrating a 'seam').. thankfully he took that in as a trade in for a new cylinder since I wire brushed it good.. it belonged to a plumber that I got it from when he retired ).
Howardlong:
Timestamp 6:07
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