Thread: "Cheaper" oxy-acetylene

Originally Posted by p38arover

Ron, where do you get oxygen refills from?

I still use a gas company to hire a oxy bottle.
I suggest to use a small gas company independent from the bigger suppliers if possible as they are more responsive customer wise and try harder as they are smaller.
I am happy with a company called Supa Gas.

I use them for forklift LPG bottles if I need them for long term on site supply to forklifts I hire out and for oxy and MIG welding gas.
If I have a problem I can talk the owner of the business......bottle filling and hire and the problem is sorted.

Beware of a welding gas supplier retailer who uses the bigger gas suppliers, for if there is any problem they say its not us, ring the number of our supplier which supplies the filled bottles/hire which gets you no where but to a highly trained person which acts to keep their job and not help you.

Originally Posted by Scouse

Hare & Forbes have this for sale:


K075 | Turboset 200 Package Professional & Portable Mini Gas Set Package | machineryhouse.com.au

VERY conservative oxygen consumption when cutting 3mm steel is approx 15lpm. at this rate, you can expect to cut about 60cm per minute.
Not sure what the Litre volume of that little cylinder is but when you calculate it out, there isn't much in there at all. Factor in a fuel gas: oxygen ration for MAPP of 1:3, and it sort of all comes into play.
1) A "c" size cylinder of approx 400L capacity will last ~26minutes
2) At this rate you could expect to use 3 times that volume of fuel gas (MAPP), or the same volume of acetylene (1:1 ratio).
3) This does not factor time it takes to setup torch, idle burn time when laying out the job, etc.
4) There would also be draw-off rate concerns for the fuel cylinder- little cylinders like that can only evaporate liquid to gas at a set rate relative to the surface area of the cylinder (inside). Big heat applications or thick cutting would not work.

Would be interesting to know what pressure those baby cylinders are filled to, and what their volume is at a given temp and pressure. Then I could do a real comparison!
If you speak to the right guy, getting a D size cylinder (1m3) at the price of one of those little baby ones would not be too hard. You could easily pick up 8 cubes of oxy for under a hungy if you know how to haggle.

Real men use G size cylinders. Nothing proves one's manliness like lugging around 60kg of asbestos filled acetylene cylinder to get the job done.

I don't think I'd go one of those. I thought D were small! I used to use E size cylinders. One was aluminium which helped, weightwise

Originally Posted by p38arover

However, it seems Bunnings in some parts of NSW now lease small D size cylinders which are exchanged much like LPG cylinders. The cylinders come from CoreGas Coregas – Trade N Go Gas™ is So Easy – Available at Bunnings Warehouse

Checked out the coregas cylinders at Bunnings: The deal is $200 "deposit" on each "D" size cylinder plus $69 for oxygen (2.1m3) and $99 for acetylene (1.0m3) - swap empty for full cylinders for the price of the gas. When you no longer need the cylinders return for refund of your "deposit".

Seems like a reasonable deal if you don't use much gas but like to have them available in the shed. Sure beats paying annual rent on cylinders that don't get much use.

Does anyone know how that gas price compares with BOC?

I returned my oxygen and acetylene cylinders to BOC years ago. I was fed up with paying what I saw as exorbitant rental. Cutting tools have improved out of sight in the last 20 years. Battery powered hand held bandsaws, 1.0 mm cutting discs, pneumatic jigsaws etc. I was only using the gas set for cutting and preheating or removing stuck bearings, bolts, etc. An LPG cylinder has enough oomph for the latter. Early this year I returned the Argoshield cylinder on my mig to BOC. The rental had gone up to $214 per annum. "Enough" cried I. I bought a cylinder from Speedgas for the equivalent of two years rental plus the charge of gas. Terrific service. I 'phoned the rep at 1.00pm and the cylinder was delivered by 4.00pm. Paid by debit card to the driver.

The reason, in 1995, that I bought (perhaps mistakenly, in hindsight) a gasless MIG was because of cylinder hire costs. I'm not a big user of my MIG. If I could convert it to gas, I'd probably do it now that there are other options for gas. Mine is a WIA unit.

I put my 20yo Mig into storage years ago because of the price of gas bottle rental. I bought a Speedie Gas bottle and now us the Mig all the time - is a nice easy ad now cheap piece of kit to use.

Also now thinking of buying an Oxygen bottle to use with LPG for cutting and heating. Might get a cheap plasma cutter with my air compressor providing the air as an alternative.

Garry