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Old 02-09-2017, 02:36 PM
crystallographic crystallographic is offline
MetalShaper of the Month October '14 , April '16, July 2020, Jan 2023
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Western Sierra Nevadas, Badger Hill, CA
Posts: 4,388
Default Clean fuel gas - have you had lumpy rough welds?

I've been getting dirty fuel gas for so long that I had come to accept returning the bottles, until now.
My supplier started delivering slightly dirty gas, then dirtier gas over the years. But when I left their supply area and did aluminum jobs in OR, WA, WI, FL, NH, MT, PA and TX the problem disappeared. It was not the oxygen because that has to be produced at a specific level of purity for medical service. (I did transport my entire setup - minus bottles - out of state one time and carefully substituted each component to isolate the exact source of the dirt/contamination - PRESTO: my acetylene was greasy.)

Two years ago I started getting inquiries about problems with O/A welding aluminum - and tested and found to be dirty gas.

So, what do dirty-gas O/A welds on aluminum look like?
Topside:
P1160609copy.jpg

But the roots should be clean:
P1160610copy.jpg
....because the gas does not touch the root side.

Clean O/A aluminum welds can look like this:
good clean O_A weld 3003 copy.jpg
O_A on .040 3003 .jpg
P1130433 fusion copy.jpg
hot and fast .050 3003 .jpg

So, after consulting with one of my engineers, he found the correct filter element and we made a sturdy durable compact canister for welding gas filtration.
https://www.tinmantech.com/products/...lding-filters/

There is more expensive and elaborate welding gas filtration gear on the market, but I wanted a simple effective one that was easy to install. Our early prototypes have been testing in the field for 1.5 years, with very significant results.
P1030224 copy copy.jpg

P1030300 copy.jpg

P1030304 copy.jpg

Here's the kicker in this funky gas supply circus, for me:
I have known for years that our huge gas supplier had the most decrepit and archaic acetylene generation facility in the US, and that they continued to contaminate clean bottles arriving from other chains with their product. Then I learned that these contaminated bottles were arriving in NE, OH and other locales across the US, so our asking for a fresh bottle was not going to avoid the root cause for very much longer .... Our huge gas supplier has now rebuilt their legendary generation plant - but the thousands of funky bottles remain in circulation, across the US.
Caveat Emptor.
(just doing what we can....)
__________________
Kent

http://www.tinmantech.com

"All it takes is a little practical experience to blow the he!! out of a perfectly good theory." --- Lloyd Rosenquist, charter member AWS, 1919.

Last edited by crystallographic; 02-09-2017 at 05:11 PM.
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