Posted By Diane Thomason Hi all, Does anyone here have experience of discontinuing the use of oxyacetylene in their organisation, and using other processes instead? I'm aware of the issues of hazards/control measures etc. surrounding oxyacetylene, oxypropane, arc welding and so on. I just wondered if any of you had been involved in a decision to stop using acetylene. What was the rationale and what was the effect on the organisation's work? Conversely, has anyone decided that acetylene is essential for certain processes? Thanks in advance for any tales you can tell. Diane

Posted By Kevin Drew Diane, We use a lot of oxy-petrol cutting which is allegedly safer but that isn't specifically why we use it. Generally speaking it's horses for courses, whether it be oxy-acetylene, oxy-petrol, plasma arc or even powder cutting, they all have different uses depending on the materials or the circumstances in which you are cutting. To my knowledge, there is no one method suits all. Kevin

Posted By tdunbar Diane Are you trying to remove or reduce the acetylene risk?

Posted By Flic I believe that the higher flame temperature of the oxygen/acetylene mixture is needed to weld steel. Unfortunately I don't have the definitive data easily to hand. Flic

Posted By Bob Youel A is quicker and leaves a cleaner cut etc in like for like cases than Propane

Posted By Kevin Drew Diane, Oxy-petrol or Petrogen is great for cutting laminates or steel backed with concrete both of which are very difficult with oxy-acetylene. The flame is apparently much more compact with oxy-petrol. Additionally, you only need to carry around 5 litres of petrol compared with relatively large bottles of acetylene with all their inherent problems. We've used it extensively for the size reduction of steelwork prior to demolition. The Petrogen website is as good a place as any to start if you're interested. No good for welding though. Kevin