I encountered a couple of broken broken boltsn at work today that just would not budge with stud extractors etc so sfter 2 hours of trying to remove them, i took them to a mate who got them out with oxy acetylene.

Unfortunately, i can justify the costs of an oxy acetylene setup and bottle rental so i was wondering if any locosters knew of a way of getting similar heat from a much cheaper, workshop friendly source?

Oxygen and Propane, or MAPP gas.

Carbon arc torch - loads of fun!

Something like this would probably be the best bet

http://www.welduk.com/Details.asp?ProductID=198

depends what you want to do with it, if just heating things up better than a blow lamp then i brought a MAPP gas torch goes up to 2000deg according to Wiki about £60 on ebay

Yes MAPP is a bit toasty Good enough for getting out crudy bolts. No good for welding but that's a different matter....

Ask around with trade friends to see if they have a favorable contract rate they can add a set of bottles to for you, big plumbing and HVAC firms usually have a bunch of bottles on contract. My rental rate is $40 cdn, per bottle, $23/m^3 for acetylene fill and $38 for a full oxy top up. It's about triple that for the "man off the street" pricing. A set of torches regulators and hoses run $100 or so on fleabay. I take years to go through a set of bottles in my home shop but it'd drive me mad not to have them -- we use a lot of salt on the roads in winter so every fastener you touch is seized...

Cdn dollar is about £0.66 at the moment.

t

I braze and cut with oxy and propane.
Seems to go through about 2x the O2 as when using acetylene though.
Dale

It is just for heating things up so i think mapp sounds like the way to go. Thanks for all your replys

there are these portapack - whatever they are called - small bottles of oxygen and acetylene, similar in size to the disaposable MIG gas cylinders/

but then you need the gear - torches, hoses, glasses etc. that will set you back over £ 100, not including the gas.

the map torch or 2 seems the way.

I have got a set of proper mini gas cylinders with gauges and regulators (BOC) and torch which is surplus to requirements.

Still loads of gas in them. £75 collected from Sittingbourne, Kent if you are interested.

Mike