<font color=blue>Any secrets on how to make clean torch cuts would be appreciated.</font color=blue>
The first and most important thing about using a cutting torch is understanding that there is no magic. It doesn't take talent or superior intelligence to master the monster.
It's all about heat and rate of travel. If there is a talent to it the only thing I can think that would be would be the ability to concentrate. You can hook up a buggo which is self propelled mechanism for welding or cutting and set it. It will cut perfect cuts. The machine doensn't wonder if the neighbor's wife wears underwear under those jeans or if the company is going to lay one off this week or the next.
So if we know that the magic in cutting is purely and teetotally set up and then the proper rate of travel it only leaves practice for us work on. Practice works real well. Especially when we do it repeatedly and often.
What happens when you're using a cutting torch is the blue part of the flame turns the steel red. Then when you hit the oxygen lever it causes the red to burn through the remaining steel and you have the start of the cut. What you're looking for is that point where the steel turns orange and wet looking and the oxygen hits it. So when you've got the right heat, the wet orange shows up, and you've got the right rate of travel, the oxygen is hitting the leading edge of the orange just as it shows up, you have a perfect cut.
If you're too slow the wet orange becomes a clean clear through mess as you're melting all the steel and it rewelds or recombines to itself as it cools just before landing on your boots and teaching you how to really do a jig.
If you're moving too fast the oxygen doesn't have the time to push the wet orange through the steel so it comes bubbling back up just to listen to see if you're a decent cusser or merely a repeataholic.
For me it's sorta like driving. You're concentrating not so much on what's under your wheels as much as what's coming up. So you get the heat and rate of travel and then you concentrate on the path you're going to take.
There's a lot more to it than that of course. You need clean tips. A good fitter will wear out cutting tips from cleaning them long before they burn out. You need to find that space that's perfect for that flame and that material. If you're too close you're gonna have problems. If you're too far away you're gonna have another set of problems.
But the biggest problem I see with cutting for most folks is again like driving. I see them worrying about what's under their wheels when they're doing thirty five miles an hour.
Practice repeatedly and often. And concentrate on the fact that there's only about three things going on here. And none of it's magic.
