Acetylene = Anti-Spatter

Date 01-23-2008 06:48

Tim , i think that was where the song "little black things" came from . but it works , especialy in the field and when it's too cold to get a can to spray . we use it more than we used to . and thanks for sharing this . good luck . willie

By rlitman (***)

Date 01-23-2008 07:23

Yeah, that soot can be quite useful.
Its also great for getting gun sights super black, and as a release in molds when casting lead or tin.

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 01-23-2008 08:51

Neat thats one to put in my hat.

By rlitman (***)

Date 01-23-2008 17:08

Did I mention that it gets everywhere, smudges, and is probably highly carcinogenic?
And those damn little black streaming ribbons of gook that get all over the shop when I'm trying to blacken just one small thing . . .

Still great stuff though. :)

By Plasma-Brain (**)

Date 01-25-2008 17:39

Intresting topic.... never really knew it would work for that...
You learn something every day eh?

and if i had to, id rather sit in a room of the little black carbon ribbons than a room full of the white smoke of doom from galvanized....

you know its bad when you can take a cloud of the white smoke in your gloves and shove it through a tube and have it come out the other side as a cloud still....
Blech!!!

gimmie carbon soot anyday over that...

adding my 2 peices of copper
-Clif

By jrw159

Date 02-15-2008 19:44

Never heard of this, sounds interesting. One thing to consider though is if and I stress IF you are working to a code of any sort you must keep the weld area and HAZ free from all contaminants, and I believe this would be a contaminant. But outside of the weld area and HAZ there would be no problem. We have anti spatter running out the wazoo where I am at but I might try this just to see how well it works. You truly can learn something new every day.

By aevald

Date 02-15-2008 20:01

Hello jrw159, from your recent posts I see you are getting a full dose of the variety of topics that can be found here. I full agree with one of the observations in your other posts, there is an abundance of knowledge here and it is also good to exercise the grey-matter to help keep yourself sharp. I have lurked for roughly the past 3 years and have learned and been exposed to amazing amounts of brilliance during that time. Hope you enjoy this as much as many of the others of us. Best regards, aevald

By jrw159

Date 02-15-2008 20:06

I am loving it, even the parts I hate to see, IE scrappywelds "trick". OUTSTANDING!!

By webbcity (***)

Date 02-15-2008 20:02

jrw159 , is your anti spatter the kind that creates hazardus fumes and poisionus gasses when heated ? some do we just had a presentation at our local aws section meeting , kind of bad stuff , i didn't realize that , i've got to check ours before we have any of the welders use any , lucky we are not doing that type of welding right now . keep us posted . good luck . willie

By jrw159

Date 02-15-2008 20:05

I do not believe so, but a good question that I need to answer here for the health and safety of my welders. Thank you. Im headed out to the shop now to see.

By jrw159

Date 02-15-2008 20:11

We use weld kleen 350. I just pulled the MSDS and it shows to be non-hazardous. I would hope that I can trust this info. Please advise if anyone feels or knows different.

By Plasma-Brain (**)

Date 03-24-2008 15:59

I've used the 350 before, and it used to save my arse all the time. It didn't help much if your machine hated you, but if you had it tuned in and running good, the anti spatter did a commendable job of making clean up easier. The machines I was working with were far from tip top... so even on the best day you could expect a little "soft" spatter. On a bad day, those pesky "hard" bb's that you have to grind off were common, that's where the anti spatter came into play.
A brush with the glove or a pass or 2 with the chipping hammer was more than enough to take off the BB's. Sometimes though, nothing helped and you were stuck trying to get a 3" air grinder in a corner that you could barely fit your hand into (why anyone cared if there was spatter in there is beyond me... but that's what the customer wanted so that's what they got.)

That being said I never noticed any toxic fumes coming from it, it just smelled kinda like a cheap bathroom soap when it cooked off. Not that you would want to stick your head in the plume of steam, but it wasnt anything that needed a respirator to be around either. We got it in big 5 gallon jugs and put it into cheap plastic spray bottles, no mini hand grenades from metal cans.

My .2 Cents
-Clif

By jrw159

Date 03-24-2008 16:12

Our only problem here is overusage of this product. I do not know how it got started, but my first day in the shop I witnessed people drowning thier weld areas, welding over it wet and then quenching the weld afterwards with the anti-spatter. The funny part was they turned around and asked why they were getting so much porosity. I had to explain that less is best and we are not certified for under water welding processes. As for the quenching of the finished weld, I have no good answer for why this was bieng done, but rest assured it no longer happens.

By JNEcnh Date 03-04-2008 06:44

Ah-Ha! my welding teacher would love this! Although hes a real fan of the spray...

By Matt 2

Date 03-11-2008 00:23

Anybody ever use the old fish oil anti-splatter? The smell of that stuff was bad enough to kill someone, especially when you squirted your buddy with it.

By jrw159

Date 03-11-2008 15:00

I guess I have never heard of this. Could you elaborate?

By Kix

Date 03-11-2008 18:30

What are you guys looking for on the MSDS that can harm us when it's burnt?

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 03-11-2008 19:36

Two thoughts on this one.

First to the original post.... The soot from the acetylene is mostly carbon right?   So we are making a carbon film on our steel and welding right over it in order to reduce spatter.

Is the amount of carbon pickup negliable? Usually we think of carbon additions making things more brittle... I wonder if anybody has ever done any trials to see if this is the case in reality or if it just doesn't matter.

I hate Anti-spatter sprays... I do remember that awful fish oil smell back in the 80's

In our school lab I just don't allow any kind of aerosol can near the power supplies... Too many beginners ready to turn them into grenades.

Besides in a school we ought to have enough control over our process to make spatter free welds with no spray at all.   If I see spatter I know something is wrong and a parameter or gun/torch position needs correction.

By jrw159

Date 03-11-2008 19:51

"One thing to consider though is if and I stress IF you are working to a code of any sort you must keep the weld area and HAZ free from all contaminants, and I believe this would be a contaminant." What is your take on this line from my earlier reply.

I could not agree more about aerosol canned antispatter. Mini bombs.

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 03-11-2008 20:48

Sounds like a contaminant to me :)

But in the world of joining it's hard to argue with success eh?

If it's code work I would have hearburn about the practice.

If it were in my garage, I would prolly pull my hair out trying to figure out why I was getting spatter in the first place and never get around to using smoke.

I'm kinda like Monk with process control, just gonna keep tweaking my process until it is working the way it ought to.

By jrw159

Date 03-11-2008 20:53

Same page.

By DaveBoyer (*****)

Date 03-12-2008 05:40

If You are working to FC2002 You can use PAM cooking spray, butter flavor optional.

The soot from a torch probably makes the newspaper covered coat hangers come up to 60 KSI ultimate [see Darrin's & My recent posts under "Welder for Hire" in Shop Talk].

By jrw159

Date 03-12-2008 12:59

LMAO! I am not positive but I think the welder for hire post you refer to may be cause for a rev on FC2002. FC2008 upcoming???

By Stringer (***)

Date 03-14-2008 03:17

Canola oil with a brush. Works as a coolant for drilling, too. Ask any trick blacksmith.

By jrw159

Date 03-14-2008 14:32

makes sense. It probably carries the cuttings nicely as well.

By RonG

Date 03-14-2008 14:52

What is not being said is that the soot will burn off around 600-700' F and is no longer a problem. Its been used for a preheat on Aluminum for many years. If you blacken the Aluminum with the soot them preheat until it disapears its ready to weld.