Hey guys I’m new to the forum so I do apologize if I’m posting in the wrong manner. I’ve found an oxy/propane set up that’s not too far from me for sale on marketplace. I have no idea what I’m looking at though lol.
Is the price decent? Or am I better off building my own kit?
I have experience fabricating and welding but I’ve literally never held a gas torch.
Imho, the value is in the torch, if any.
$650 is very steep, I have built mine for $290, I was lucky but even so, 650 is way too high.
All the info you need is here
Thank you!!! Felt expensive for sure. Could probably find a used oxy/acet setup for $650.
If you find a torch setup at a good price you are over the hill, all the rest is common stuff, the most specialized equipment is the torch.
Be careful of buying acetilene or oxygen tanks used as the seller may not really own them if they had rent them from the store, it’s common practice to rent the tanks instead of buying them.
Check jeweller setups, it’s more common to find the right size torches in that market, usually the oxy/acetilene setups in my area are big torches.
This lot just went for sale in my area. Probably too big of torches though?
Asking $175 for all of this
yes that is too big.
One indicator is when the gas knobs are close to the tip and not at the base of the torch.
In my area there are a couple for sale, one as a portable tank kit and one as torch+hose
Remember that with oxy/propane you will need new tips as well and those don’t come in all flavors, so far I have only seen Paige tips and they are only for Victor J-28 and Smith AW1A so your torch needs to be compatible with those models.
You will need a special neck as well so try to find the naked torch as you won’t need anything else (and I would not trust hoses or regulators that were left in the dirt for 20 years)
Most likely than not you will find J-28 compatible torches, Smiths are more niche products so it’s harder to find them in the used market.
You can find plenty on Ebay:
Also, have you checked chinese clones? It could be a good start until you find a deal on an original (and then you keep the clone as a spare)
Cheapest:
Amazon.com - I had this one, it’s not bad, it works, a little bulkier than a J-28
Better clone:
Amazon.com - if you get this you may not need to upgrade at all, it seems to be a 100% match - better brand as well.
You will need a Victor UN-J neck as well, there are no common clones that I can see and it’s impossible to find used, that’s another $75-90 right there.
Thank you so much!! I’m going to do some more searching and go from there. Will probably end up getting that gentec 140t!!
That seems to be either a J-27 or a J-28, this also seems to be in much better shape, tanks are definitely better and you may be able to use the regulators as well, the hose I would change just because they get brittle with time but you would be able to try it before you buy, if he is out of gas, just check that air is coming out the torch, both lines and that the knobs actually open and stop the flow.
Good find!
Thank you! It’s a 4 hr drive from me but I could make a day trip down and back to snag it. Nothing around me locally. I live in a small area in South Dakota.
Consider buying online vs the gas and time you will be using.
For me, driving 4h uses at least $70 worth of gas, most likely shy of $100, that would make this buy close to $250 and that puts you awfully close to buying a new setup online, maybe not victor but one of the clones.
Read the topic I posted, there are plenty of good links and resources to build your own oxy-propane setup, I posted mine there as well.
That acetylene bottle is tiny. Acetylene has a maximum safe withdrawal rate that’s a ratio of the bottle size, so a small bottle can only do a small flame. For bike frames, I recommend at least a size 3 cylinder, sometimes called 70, 75, or 80 CF (cubic foot), but even that won’t let you run a big rosebud heating torch, or not for long anyway. (You can exceed the max withdrawal rate for brief periods, very brief if you’re way over.) Get a size 4 if you can swing it, and even then you’ll still be somewhat limited.
If the other parts are a good enough value, you could buy that kit and then switch to propane, which doesn’t have any equivalent flame size limit, and bottles can be exchanged or refilled practically anywhere. Combine that with an O2 concentrator instead of bottled O2, then there’s no need for the welding gases store anymore. Not that I hate them or anything, but I’d rather not go there if I don’t have to.
I have now bought three O2 concentrators off CraigsList, and they’ve all been fine, though YMMV. Not that I needed 3, but the last two I bought were $75 each, couldn’t pass that up. (I moved one of them on to a friend) That’s abnormally low though, I think $150-200 is more common around here. Other places might not be so flush with them, but oxygen-dependent patients are everywhere and sadly they do die sometimes. Then the heirs usually just want the thing gone.
Propane isn’t “second best” in my opinion, it is actually better than acetylene in some ways. It can do everything acetylene can do excpt for gas-welding. It’s actually superior for lugs and fork crowns. When I was a full-time pro 30 years ago we used both, but always propane for lugs and crowns. And we didn’t even have tips as nice as the Paige tips I have now, they’re awesome, get 'em if you can. We used acetylene for fillet-brazing, but if we’d had Paige tips, we could have done it all with propane. Paige tips are so good that I wouldn’t buy a torch unless it was one of the ones they’re compatible with.
Wow, thank you guys. I’m learning a lot. It’s fun stuff. I’m going to buy new. Was weighing the pros and cons of making a trip out of the deal but I’m not getting an answer from the guy anyways. Definitely going the propane/concentrator route. I want to start with adding braze ons to frames and making some racks and go from there. I’m in construction so getting a full fledged oxy/acetylene setup is appealing for other use cases but I’ve made it this far without owning one.
