Gas Welding

Cuzzin Rick's Baja Bug is going on a short hiatus but I got the main section of the roll cage welded up. I gas welded the thing rather than using TIG or MIG. It's a buggy from the 70's and a lot of the hot rod and aircraft guys were still gas welding things back then, so I thought: "What the heck, why not?" MIG welders were around back then but TIG was still pretty much reserved for aluminum and magnesium. Gas welding and brazing was still being used in body shops then but the metal started getting too thin to weld without a lot of warpage. It's really amazing, however, what a good craftsman can do with it.

If a guy has a set of tanks and a combination torch, he can fix damn near anything. Cast iron can be either brazed or gas welded. Likewise carbon steel - anything from a bicycle to a battleship. It's possible to gas weld aluminum as well but it's pretty tricky. The hot rod guys still use gas welding when they're chopping tops. You can hammer weld the tack welds to get them to stretch and they won't break plus you have excellent control on the weld build up. When you're MIG welding, as long as you're pulling the trigger you're adding filler metal. When you're gas welding you only add as much reinforcement as needed. A lot less grinding that way. TIG welding gives you pretty much the same thing but without the annealing effect that you get from gas welding that can be a real blessing on occasion. Plus, a good TIG setup that you can weld both steel and aluminum with is going to set you back a couple of grand and you still need a set of tanks and a cutting torch.

I still try to do a little gas welding every year so my guys are exposed to it and have a chance to learn it if they so desire. I don't know of anyone who still teaches it outside of aircraft restoration. It's not a fast process but it's plenty strong when done properly. The welds look real pretty, especially on tube fillets like the roll cage or on properly prepared edge welds on sheet metal. You can join two pieces of sheet at right angles to each other without filler metal if you put a little thought into it first. The welds come out absolutely gorgeous. There's not a man alive that can make MIG welds look that good. So get the goggles, a couple of firebricks and start practicing.