What good is a review of Welding Torches or Plasma Cutters if you don’t understand why you would need either of them in the first place?
Both of these pieces of equipment serve their own individual purposes, to cut metal. Before you go out to purchase it’s important that you make careful calculations that will allow you to make the most out of the equipment of your choice. Remember, both Plasma Cutters and Welding Torches have their own unique benefits, costs, and supplemental safety equipment that come along with using them.
How to choose whether to use a plasma torch or a welding torch?
- Do you require a tool for only cutting or do you also require a tool for brazing, heating, or welding?
- What types of metal do you typically cut?
- What’s the thickest metal, you ever see yourself cutting with the tool?
Video explaining difference between Oxy-Acetylene Torches and Plasma Cutters
What is a Plasma Cutter?
To answer that question, we should know a bit about the material plasma. Plasma welding is a process that uses an ionized gas (or plasma / electricity or energy in an electricity neutral gas such as compressed air). The elements mentioned in the parentheses (electricity neutr.al gas and electricity) are forced through a nozzle and electrode which makes the (at this time just gas) become imbalanced and. into plasma.
When do you use a Plasma Cutter?
Choosing when. you use a plasma cutter (or the type of cutter you need) depends greatly on a few things such as:
- Is the metal you’re cutting thick?
- Do you need some sort of portable unit?
- Do you need your electrical current to vary?
- Will you use the plasma cutter often?
Plasma Cutters are used to cut and gouge, on average materials with a thickness of an inch.
Benefits of Plasma Cutters / Using a Plasma Cutter
All that many understand about plasma cutters is that they cut metal; many don’t know that there are also a vast number of benefits to working with a plasma cutter.
The benefits of using a plasma cutter are:
- They’re becoming more and more portable with improvements in inverter technology.
- Are very precise with their cuts and require very little clean up (little slag and narrow kerfs)
- Are versatile
- Are inexpensive in the long term
- Are relatively safe to use.
- When you use a plasma cutter under water there is very little heat exposure and very little noise.
- Plasma cutters tend to cut quickly.
- Plasma cutters can cut non-ferrous material such as cast-iron, aluminum, and stainless steel.
- Plasma cutters tend to cut faster on thinner metals.
Disdvantages of using a Table Plasma Cutter:
- The upfront investment of plasma cutters is a bit much relative to oxy-acetylene torches.
- There are safety hazards associated with using a plasma cutter (as with anything)
What is Oxy-Acetylene Welding/Cutting?
Oxy-fuel welding is a process that uses a fuel gas to cut metals. It was first used in 1903 and was done by using a welding torch. In the process the flame temperature is increased using pure Oxygen which helps the metal you’re cutting melt locally.
For Oxy-Acetylene cutting in particular the torch is used to heat the metal up to what is called it’s kindling temperature. After that, an oxygen stream is trained to the metal, which burns it into a metal oxide and flows out of the cut as slag.
Benefits of Welding Torches?
The most common type of welding torch is the acetylene torch and it uses the a combination of oxygen and gas to develop the heat that will be used to cut the metal. There are several benefits to using an oxy-acetylene welding torch but the most reasonable one is the fact that they are incredibly portable and much less expensive than other equipment that’s used for cutting metal. The portable design of welding torches makes them incredibly versatile and gives them the ability to be used on a variety of different tasks that require metal working such as pipe fitting and motorcycle building.
Differences between Oxy-Acetylene Welding Torches and Plasma Cutters
Function of Plasma Cutters and Welding Torches
If you’re planning on using a welding torch you have to make sure you’re going to have the time you need to be able to cut properly. There is also a bit of preparation that comes into play when you’re using an oxy-acetylene torch, such as the preheating of the metal. You’ll also have to make sure that of things such as:
- The gas you use (because the gas has a direct effect on the quality of the cut) is very important to pay attention to.
On the other hand, plasma cutters are able to cut through metals a bit more efficiently than welding torches do. This means the cut provided by plasma cutters is both faster and cleaner than that of a traditional welding torch. You also don’t have to worry about preheating a plasma cutter because of the hotter wave of heat that you’ll encounter when using them.
Prices of Plasma Cutters and Oxy-Acetylene Welding Torches
Depending on how active you are with your metal work, the prices of either of these tools will work fine. For example, if you tend to go through a decent amount of metal in a period then it makes sense to purchase a plasma cutter because of all of the savings you’ll receive. We don’t want to forget that with a plasma cutter you’ll be required to pay a bit more up front than you would with a torch (you would have to pay for things such as the gas). If you don’t cut as often as others a simple welding torch may be all you need to get going.
Here are the prices and relative specs of both plasma cutters and oxy-acetylene torches.
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*note: don’t compare each price side by side – this is just to give you an idea of the costs of each piece of equipment. And the number of products was chosen so you could have a broader view of the price of each product.
How to cut with an Oxy-Acetylene welding torch
In conclusion, there are quite a few benefits to using either of these tools. The trick is to find the piece of equipment that will work for you both today and tomorrow. And as always, let us know if you have any questions.
