Love to hear an explanation(or theory),propane is way more hazardous(in a fire) than acetylene.
Just turn the regulators off, empty the lines and store in a safe place and don't cut too close to the tanks/hoses. Also, don't fill garbage bags up with acetylene... static electricity=:explosion
MoparManiac, Is it easy to get results like in the youtube videos?
Sorry, forgot I posted here.
I always remove the gauge set-ups and re-install the tank caps after I am done, unless the tanks are hard mounted to a wall or post. Ever seen a fully loaded oxygen cylinder go through the side wall of a warehouse after it was knocked over with the gauges left on it? I have, and its pretty impressive!
I should have been more specific. Oxy/Acetylene is about as good as it gets when welding. However, when used for cutting/hetaing there are better, safer, and cheaper methods. Acetylene is has a very unstable nature, when used in the metal cutting environment. One of the worst things is using a torch set without flame arresters or flash back protectors, you rarely see either one of them in a home garage set-up. Propane is no where near as volatile in the event of a flash back. Acetylene is also dangerous in the respect you have no idea whats going on inside of the tanks. The gas can decompose easily if its been heated or disturbed (laid down on its side, shaken etc). Trust me, you dont want acetone coming out of your torch head. I cant tell you how many times I have seen guys have huge rose buds hooked up to a normal sized cart tank of acetylene, and them not realizing that the tank cant even sustain that much draw on the fuel gas when using a rose bud. In order to properly use a big rose bud like the manufacturer intended it to use, the acetylene tank would have to be enormous (bigger tanks = bigger problems when something goes wrong). While a 20 pound propane cylinder would do the same thing, for longer.
Also not sure what you base your statement on about acetylene being less dangerous in a fire situation. Although propane is very dangerous as well (just about any compressed gas), acetylene is extremely unstable in these situations, and are always handled with a ridiculous amount of care. Here is an article I read a while back about acetylene tanks in a garage fire.
No sooner were the new procedures in place than firefighters from Guildford, Chester Hill, Lidcombe, Merrylands, Parramatta, Burwood, Silverwater, Rescue and Hazmat were called to an incident in Guildford. What began as an ordinary domestic garage fire ended up as a protracted incident once fire crews were told there were two acetylene cylinders inside. Firefighters immediately set up a 200-metre exclusion zone and evacuated 120 people from the area while NSW Police closed surrounding roads. Ambulance officers remained on standby at the site in case of injury and to address any health concerns.
Crews set up ground monitors, enabling the fire to be contained and allowing fire attack crews to withdraw to the forward control point. Firefighters then focussed on directly cooling the acetylene cylinders by reducing hose lines to 38 mm. Only the tops of the cylinders could be seen because the garage had caved in, so another form of heat testing had to be adopted.
Firefighters called in the NSW Police Bomb Disposal Unit to use a robot to assist in monitoring and rendering the cylinders safe. However, due to the degree of structural collapse, the Police robot could not gain access to the cylinders, so a Police Bomb Disposal Technician put on a bomb protection suit and got close enough to inspect the cylinders and conduct temperature testing. Two checks 30 minutes apart showed that the cylinder temperature was 25°C and the fusible plugs had functioned to discharge the cylinders’ contents. This meant that firefighters could safely place the cylinders in hazmat bins filled with water for the gas company to pick up the next day.
Acetylene often bubbles continuously for hours and sometimes days after an incident. Firefighters from Cabramatta and Liverpool Fire Stations experienced this in August 2007 when they responded to a shipping container fire at a building site in Chipping Norton. Inside the container was an acetylene cylinder that had vented, but was still bubbling hours after the incident, indicating there was still gas inside. However, as the cylinder had vented, the presence of gas was minimal and therefore did not pose an explosion risk.
The NSWFB knows a lot more today about the dangers of acetylene than it did five years ago. The new procedures will continue to be adapted as more is learned about acetylene.
This article is here:
http://www.nswfb.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=788
You dont here about propane cylinders requiring such tactics, and there are plenty of them in home/garage fires with bbq grills. Luckily the fuse plugs did their jobs on those tanks.
With all that being said, propane just cuts better when set-up with the proper mixing chamber and tip. Its a no brainer for me, and you rarely find a big company that does lots of torch cutting using acetylene these days. Propane is where its at.
Just my opinion though. I use cutting and welding torches everyday as a Pipefitter/welder, and subsequently had to be factory trained from Victor and Harris, the two biggest torch manufacturers in the US. They will tell you quickly that using acetylene for cutting/heating is dumb when there are other otpions
