Hello. I am looking for some help and feedback on purchasing a
hydrogen torch. Does anyone out there use one for making art
jewellery. I’m not interested in repairs, but am making limited
edition and one of a kind art jewellery pieces. Any advice you can
give is awesome. Rio appears to have a good one person torch. but I’m
not sure of the “acrylics” hydro torches I see all over ebay. thanks.
Trudy Gallagher
Trudy- it depends on what metals you are using. the water torch does
NOT replace a regular torch.
I know. I have been using one for over 30 years. I trained on the
earliest models back in the day and own and use a newer one.
Water torches are like microwave ovens. A very useful tool. What it
does well it does very very well. What it doesn’t do well it doesn’t
do for s**t.
Here is what it does well. It produces a very very hot flame that is
very tight and small. It’s great for platinum work and soldering in
tight places on gold. I love it for chain repairs, soldering tiny
little jump rings, tipping on diamonds, replacing prongs, fusing and
soldering platinum, etc.
Basically I mostly use it for dodgy repairs.
I does not work on silver or copper. Both are huge heat sinks and
the tiny concentrated flame cannot get the metal hot enough to
solder. When soldering silver and copper you have to get the entire
piece hot before you can concentrate your flame on the seam to get
the solder to flow. The water torch basically sucks at this.
So buy a water torch if you want. But the best one you can almost
afford.
Cheap ones are pretty lame. But don’t expect it to be your only
source of flame.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry.
Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com