22 NEWS PRESIDENT’S HALL OF FAME: #1


For us to look forward as a welding Industry, it is not a bad idea to look back at some of the very brave and sometimes eccentric people who have shaped this Industry.


With this in mind, I have decided to put together a heroes hall of fame. Now it’s only my own personal list and I don’t wish to offend any persons who are not mentioned, or listed. How far back should we go, to make it interesting? I decided we would start at the turn of the 20th century and over the next months, I hope to bring this up to date.


THE HEROES, HALL OF FAME. Welding is older than we think, our ancestors made a fantastic job of joining metals by forge welding on the anvil, but not many of these practices are still commonly used today and a furnace is not that mobile.


NILS GUSTAF DALÉN 1869-1937


Here was a man with an idea of bringing light to everyone; his idea was to light some of the major city streets of Sweden with acetylene, but to store this gas and move it about was highly dangerous. His vision was also to light lighthouses up and down the Swedish coastline so a way of safely moving acetylene needed to be found.


In 1912 Mr Dalen was


presented with the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention, the automatic regulation in conjunction with gas accumulators. Acetylene cannot just be compressed like any other


gas, at high pressure it becomes unstable and would explode.


Gustaf Dalen invented the agamassan, (MASSAN) is Swedish for compound this was made up of asbestos and diatomaceous earth, this is a fine powdery type of limestone.


So if you were to fill a cylinder with this agamassan,and wet it down with acetone, you can introduce the acetylene under pressure and it will dissolve in the acetone and fill up the pores of the agamassan.


Now we have the beginnings of a more


safe way of transporting acetylene, but it was not without its problems, as Gustaf was experimenting with all these solutions, an explosion took the sight of Gustaf, and blinded him. But that didn’t stop him developing the AGA cooker which at the time must have been a revolution, his legacy is still used today. All modern day acetylene cylinders have a modern equivalent to the agamassan, that’s why its called dissolved acetylene and there must be millions of homes across the globe with an AGA cooker. Where did the name AGA


come from? It stands for Acetylene Gas Accumulator. This was a principal of manufacturing acetylene; it was originally made from dissolving calcium carbide into water. After this is complete, you are left with a lime residue, at the bottom of the tank, this would be of interest to another fellow Swedish citizen, and fellow hall of fame hero, but that will be in the next instalment.


I do not think we would have been able to cut or weld with oxy acetylene, if it was not for Gustaf Dalen, so a true Hero of the welding hall of fame.


by AWD President Bob Stacey


THE TECHNICAL PART To weld with oxygen, and acetylene you have to be able to understand the type of flame to use.


For steel welding and general pre- heating a neutral flame must be used, this is observed by a clear cut blue inner cone with no white fringe to the flame. For hardfacing a carburising flame can be used, this will produce a large undefined inercone and a more yellow


feather edged flame.


For brazing or bronze welding, you can use a more oxidizing flame, this will show a very small blue inner cone with the outer flame being more streaky . Gas welding is not as popular as it used to be and to do it properly it’s quite difficult to master, there are different techniques, to weld different material thicknesses.


Leftward or forward welding, this is WELDING WORLD MAGAZINE | ISSUE 02 | APRIL 2018


used for thin gauge steel maximum 3mm. Rightward welding, this is used for welding steel 5mm and over, (this is difficult to master). Vertical welding, with gas welding is not for the faint-hearted, and in most cases not many welders, are left who can do this successfully in all material thickness. I hope you have enjoyed our trip into the past, and from this point, we will start moving towards the present day.


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