Hi everyone, I have had some recurring trouble with my smallest torch
tip. I use a basic prestolite acetylene/air torch. I started getting
really poor flame quality with this tip,a very oxidising flame. I
wasn’t sure what the problem was and took the hose and regulater into
my local welding supply place. Everything checked out fine there and I
ended up replacing the tip. That seemed to fix the problem but now it
is back. So I am assuming that the tip is just getting dirty inside
and carbonized. Any thoughts on what causes this to happen? And what
is the best way to clean and maintain this tip so I will have good
flame quality? A wire brush to ream it out? Soaking it in something?
Thank you for any advice. It is extremely frustrating to have a bad
flame when trying to get on with some delicate soldering. Thank
you-Carrie Nunes tnunes@usit.ne
Carrie, did you realize Prestolites have mixer disks in the tips?
These are small, circular brass disks. Probably this is where your
problem is. Just replace the mixer disk for a couple of bucks. I don’t
know if you can revive the old mixer disks or not. I just inherited my
Prestolite recently and the disk was so gunked up, I just tossed it
and replaced it. Hope it helps! K.P. in Wyoming
Carrie: It certainly could be that the tip hole is clogged, since the
acetylene flame alone (when you light up) is very sooty. This could
certainly be true if your supply place checked the hose and
regulator, but not the tip. The welding supply will have a little
gadget for cleaning various size tips, it is a collection of very
small round wire files. Choose the one which fits the hole without
reaming off too much metal (if it fits too tight) and clean out the
soot. That should do it, repeat as needed when dirty again. It’s
happening because you leave the flame running with just acetylene or
with too little oxygen, I think. However, the fix should be easy
with the little files, so don’t change your techniques if they work
for you. If you are leaving the torch run with just a small
acetylene only flame, that could dlog it pretty quick and you might
want to stop doin’ it.
HTH,
Roy
Carrie I too recently had this problem. Look at the bottom of your
torch tip. You will see a hex head receptacle for a wrench. Remove
that section. Inside your torch you will find a small disc.(I think
there’s a screen in there too.) Check for any abnormalities or
imperfections. My disc had some very slight, and I mean very slight,
corrosion around the place where the pinhole allowed the acetylene to
go into the tip. I took a tapered brooch and extremely lightly reamed
out the hole. The tip now works just fine. You might want to ask your
gas torch supplier about this as I vaguely remember someone once
telling me that the pin hole aperture had to be precisely circular but
I have had no problems since I did this and am still here.
I had another problem some time ago with my torch. I was disgusted
and just took it to the shop without trouble shooting the problem
myself. I was quite embarrassed when the man at the shop looked at
the handle and found that a fly had crawled into the small through
air hole near the base of the handle, died there and clogged the
opening. No fly, no problem. Hope this helps. Linda M
carrie - every now & then i have to take the jeweler’s tip off of my
oxy-acetyl handpiece & drop it in a small container of 1/2 water &
1/2 ‘grease relief’ - bought at a grocery market. after a few
minutes, take a sliver off of a wood skewer (use the others for
epoxying, break off & sharpen insert in flexshaft for tripoli-ing
those tough indentations, put a blunt one in flexshaft & run around a
just-pushed bezel to smoothe, etc.) or a sliver of toothpick & gently
slide it in & out of the tip - while you’re at it use an old
toothbrush - or a partner’s if you’re ticked off - to clean the rest
of it. BUT DRY BEFORE reattaching. if you’re getting some popping or
flare-ups at the adjustment valves you might want to run a layer of
teflon tape around the threads one or the other of them before
reattaching tip. oxy-acetyl runs a good temp for me but it does create
carbon build-up, where my propane unit doesn’t. save carbon gunk &
sell to major league ball team members in your area to smear under
their eyes before playing in bright sunlight (but don’t dispose down
the drain.) good luck - ive
Hi Carrie,
Hi everyone, I have had some recurring trouble with my smallest torch
tip. I use a basic prestolite acetylene/air torch. I started getting
really poor flame quality with this tip, a very oxidizing flame. I
wasn’t sure what the problem was and took the hose and regulator into
my local welding supply place. Everything checked out fine there and
I ended up replacing the tip. That seemed to fix the problem but now
it is back. So I am assuming that the tip is just getting dirty inside
and carbonized. Any thoughts on what causes this to happen? And what
is the best way to clean and maintain this tip so I will have good
flame quality? A wire brush to ream it out? Soaking it in
something?
There are a couple of things you might try. I don’t know what size
your smallest torch tip is, but if it gets dirty & you want to clean
it, you can get an assortment of torch tip cleaners at most welding
suppliers. They’re basically different size reamers that are inserted
into the hole in the tip. Inserting & removing them several times
cleans out the tip. You only use the size that fits the tip, if you
use a larger size you may increase the size of hole in the tip.
Another thing you might try is adjusting (increasing or decreasing)
the pressure the gas is delivered at. This is done by turning the
knob/handle on the regulator attached to the tank.
A 3rd thing to check is the flame arrestor in the base of the tip.
Most tips for acet/air torches I’m familiar with have a removable
filter/flame arrestor in the part of the tip that screws into the
torch handle. Remove a tip from the handle. Look inside the end that
screws into the handle. You’ll probably see a steel ring with a hex
shaped hole in it. At the bottom of the hex will appear something
that may look like a very fine screen or porous stone, this is the
filter/flame arrestor. The hex opening willaccommodate an allen
wrench, which is used to unscrew the filter/flame arrestor.
I don’t know what the symptoms of a dirty or partially blocked
filter/flame arrestor are, but if it is removed from the tip, it can
be cleaned by soaking in a solvent that will cut petroleum products.
After soaking, clear the solvent out by blowing a strong air stream
through the filter. The other option is to buy a new replacement
filter at a welding supply.
The purpose of the filter/flame arrestor is to prevent the flame from
following the gas down the hose to the tank. DON’T use a tip that
doesn’t have one!
Dave
Carrie, it sounds like the orifice in your torch tip is getting
plugged up. Remove the tip from the handle. At the bottom of the tip
there is a filter (looks like a mesh screen) held in by a allen head
set screw. Remove the screen (carefully) and a small disc should drop
out, if it doesn’t, gently tap the bottom of the tip. There is a hole
in this little disc that occasionally gets a piece of grit stuck in
it. Find a very small needle and, being very careful NOT to enlarge
the hole remove any obstruction. Replace the orifice, and filter.
Check the large air intake holes at the base of the tip just below the
threads and make sure that these are clear. Your tip should be back to
its old self. Once, after not having used my prestolyte for some time
I had to break it out for a demonstration. It didn’t work, only small
explosions and flame puffs at the base. After several embarrassing
moments I dismantled the tip and found that a small spider had decided
to claim squatter’s rights in the base if the tip!
Carrie…Something to check. There is a filter at the
back end of the torch tip assembly that may be partially clogged. If
you remove the entire torch from the hose and look into the back end
of the torch assembly you woll see a hexagon. Use an allen wrench to
unscrew this nut and it will either have a flter attached to it or it
will be clamping a filter disc in place which you can now shake out of
the assembly. You could try soaking this filter in a solvent but you
will never be able to visually know that it is clear, Much easier to
buy a new filter…or borrow one from another torch to prove that
the filter is the problem.
One more possibility…there is a small thin disc above the
filter which has a pinhole in it for limiting the gas flow. Sometimes
that hole clogs. DON’T try to clear that hole. Instead take it out,
reverse it and
Good luck. Sol K.reinstall. Tne next time you use the torch the gas
pressure will blow the clog out…if you are lucky