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  1. #16
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Gippsland Victoria
    Posts
    733

    Default Carbide and Acetylene

    This post prompted by Graham mentioning Acetylene above ........ 50 years ago in Cloncurry Qld we could buy what we called Carbide from the grocery shop.

    Carbide + Water yields acetylene and it was rumoured that some old folk still had acetylene lamps that they used the Carbide in.

    Google tells me the correct name is calcium carbide.

    Did metalworkers ever use this stuff to braze ?

    Am guessing its too dangerous to be sold nowadays and has been banned. Some videos on youtube.

    Bill
    Last edited by steamingbill; 22nd Nov 2018 at 06:08 PM. Reason: typos

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
    Posts
    6,446

    Default

    Bill,
    I would say yes, as when I was an apprentice attending TAFE there was carbide generation equipment on display at Kelvin Grove campus , Brisbane.

    When this equipment was last used, I have no idea. We thought it was old fashioned junk and we preferred this modern oxy acetylene cylinders.

    I suspect young metaltrades apprentices have a similar attitude with the plasma cutter compared with my "modern" oxy acetylene process.

    Grahame

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Cairns, Q
    Posts
    666

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by steamingbill View Post

    Did metalworkers ever use this stuff to braze ?
    Bill,

    I started working in a Queensland sugar mill in 1955. I don't remember seeing acetylene cylinders in use in the first couple of years I was there. All the portable oxy-acetylene sets consisted of a cylinder of oxygen and an acetylene generator mounted on a trolley with big diameter iron wheels. These were used for all the normal cutting,welding, heating and brazing tasks around the mill in exactly the same way as modern sets are used today. I never got to use one, but I seem to remember being told that a different blowpipe was used from that used with bottled acetylene - not sure of this though.

    We also used rather crude portable open flame acetylene lights for light when attending to cane train derailments at night.

    Another common use for calcium carbide in the district by farmers was as fuel for clockwork driven automatic animal and bird scaring guns, which could be set to fire at any rate from about every twenty seconds up to many minutes between shots.

    Frank

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Perth
    Posts
    34

    Default

    Regarding the acetylene generators, they are still pretty common in Indonesia / Bali I saw a couple of sets outside little roadside workshops when I was there earlier this year.

    Eskimo, brazing the 11/8" with mapp gas, was that with nitrogen purge running? Not that it's really relevant to the current conversation but I find that makes a big difference whether you need to get the oxy out or not.

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