Jim Williams
Stainless
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2002
- Location
- Grant, Florida
I bought an L & R Aqua torch at an auction a couple of months ago. It looked pretty good, but the person bringing it stated that he did not know if it worked. I got it for a token bid. When I was checking out the original manual which came with it, I was almost floored. The quality control person perparing the unit for shipment was James Williams, with a signature that looked just like mine! Was that destiny or not? I completely dismantled it to clean up a spill of the potassium hydroxide electrolyte. The electrolyte chamber was really scaled up inside, probably from someone using tap water in it. I now have it working and used it for the first time this afternoon. I silver soldered a broken sterling friendship ring with it. Wow! It beats an O A torch in doing small jobs. Just select the hypodermic needle tip to provide the right amount of heat, and get with it. The largest needle will melt the end of a 1/8 inch steel welding rod very quickly. I have not tried it for welding mild steel. I doubt it would work for that because the oxygen-hydrogen flame is neutral and cannot be made reducing. I have run it perhaps an hour or two total, and I can see very little water level reduction in the sight tube for the disassociation chamber. I measured about three volts out of the output side of the huge power diodes. I think it pulls about seven amperes, so the current through the electrolyte must be pretty high. It has internal controls to automatically switch the power on and off to maintain a steady flame by controlling the gas pressure. The oxygen-hydrogen mixture is passed through a liquid to scrub it, I suppose. The flame temperature can be varied by what liquid is used in the scrubber. Water gives the highest temperature, with lesser temperatures with acetone, MEK, or alcohol. If anyone else has one of these things that doesn't work, I may have learned enough to be able to help.
Jim Williams
Jim Williams