Posted by gmharris [72.219.148.98] on Saturday, September 06, 2014 at 02:45:02 :
In Reply to: Re: Cutting cast iron with acetylene posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.28] on Saturday, September 06, 2014 at 01:52:09 :
You've got it right about the graphite interfering with the cutting. Actually, "cutting" is probably the wrong term. You can severe or put a hole in cast iron with acetylene, but the techniques is more similar to a plasma cutter because the oxygen stream is just used to blow out the slag. The oxides in the cast iron prevent the oxygen from combining with the melted metal like it would when cutting steel.
Only a few people would be interested, but I suspect you might be, in this 100 year old book on oxy-acetylene cutting It's probably worth a few minutes to look through. It's amazing what they knew 100 years ago and what they didn't know. How about the section on lead burning (welding)?
http://books.google.com/books?id=2ilDAAAAIAAJ&dq=oxy-acetylene+cutting+cast+iron&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=89Y6wC12_y&sig=rWj6sZrPO3uCjJV4j4RJ3ajiDpY&hl=en&ei=gI65SaS6BZyWMc3ytKMI&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#v=thumbnail&q=oxy-acetylene%20cutting%20cast%20iron&f=true