Carbon Arc Torch

[Allen's Son]

My father is looking for a carbon arc torch for braising. I know very little about welding - so don't even know where to start looking other than normal retail outlets. None of them even know what I'm talking about. Can you give me some advice on where and what to look for?

[Pumpkinhead]

you will never find it at a normal outlet, probably not even a welding supply house if there aren't any old doods there, this is old timey equiptment.
the only place i know of is here:

https://weldingsupply.securesites.com/cgi-bin/einstein.pl?Next::41:UNDEF:OR:twin*carbon::::std*Q UICK*SEARCH

second pic. up from bottom of page. "Magnum Carbon Arc Torch"

[Chuck U&R]

I've got an old Sears carbon arc welder somewhere in the shop.
I'm thinking it's 80A.
You can have it for the cost of shipping & handling - $20.-$30.
Let me know if your interested and I'll dig it out and E you a few pics.

[BKD]

If you look around, the torches aren't that hard to find... I found an old Lincoln on eBay a couple of years ago and got it for about $15.

But the Carbons for them are almost non-existant, at least in my area.

I don't know if you can use air-arc carbons or not...

[tooldude56]

If you look around, the torches aren't that hard to find... I found an old Lincoln on eBay a couple of years ago and got it for about $15.

But the Carbons for them are almost non-existant, at least in my area.

I don't know if you can use air-arc carbons or not...



I dont know about arcair rods ,for anything but copper,but I welded copper for several years with the 1/4" arcair rods,though we peeled the copper coating from them.When I was still in the Plant,we puddled our vibratory motor stators with carbon and actually used the complete arcair gouging torches,hooked to a Lincoln TM-400 AC-DC stick welder.The stators were compiled of a stack of thin steel plates that has heavy copper endplates and the whole assemblies had several holes in them with copper rivets that went all the way through them,then were formed in to a ball on the raw end.We dumped small amounts of 20 mule team Borax on them for flux and then struck an arc with the carbon and puddled a solid weld all the way around the row of rivets.This was a very interesting job,but not very well liked,because the heat was so intense that it would turn a green welding jacket white in a couple of shifts and we has to use glass filter plates on our helmets,because the plastic ones would melt.Another down side,was the fact that every thing that you ate for about a week after doing this job,tasted like 20 mule team Borax.The up side of this job and the reason why I allways volunteared,was the fact that,no one bothered you while you were in your own little corner of the shop,not even the bosses,because no one wanted to get around the nasty smell,intense heat and herendes smoke assossiated with this job.The exhaust fan worked overtime in that welding booth.beleive it or not,I never lost interest in that job and actually found it to be quite fullfilling and interesting.

tooldude56

[enlpck]

There are a few sources of the bare rods intended for welding (they pop up on ebay once in a while), but there are other carbon rod sources... they have many uses, and the size isn't critical for welding.

Air arc rods work, as long as the copper won't cause problems. Most of the copper will cook off behind the arc, but I wouldn't use them around steel, other than when brazing with a red braze metal (bronze, etc), as the copper can cause some metallurgical problems. It isn't a problem when gouging, probably because the air blast expels the copper with the slag.

A google search will show several manufacturers and suppliers.