Tips & Nozzles

Oxy-acetylene cutting tips, heating heads and tip maintenance tools in the common industry styles - Victor 1-101 and 3-101, Harris 6290 and J series, Airco 144, Purox 4202.

Tip size follows material thickness

The number stamped on a cutting tip is a size, and that size is matched to a plate thickness range and a set of gas pressures. It is not a preference.

• Too small and the tip cannot sustain the kerf: the cut drags, the preheat cannot keep up, and you lose the cut partway through.
• Too large and you waste oxygen and acetylene, widen the kerf, and put far more heat into the plate than the job needs - which means more distortion to correct afterwards.

Sizes 000 through 5 cover most fabrication work from sheet up to heavy plate. Check the manufacturer's pressure chart for the tip you are running rather than working from the last job's settings.

Style compatibility matters

Victor, Harris, Airco and Purox tips use different seat designs and are not interchangeable across torch makes, even where the body looks similar. A tip that does not seat correctly leaks, and an oxy-fuel leak at the torch head is a fire, not an inconvenience. If you are unsure which torch you have, bring it in or send a photograph of the head.

Heating heads are a different job

Rosebud and multi-flame heating heads spread heat over an area rather than concentrating it to sever. They are for bending, straightening, shrinking and freeing seized assemblies - and they consume gas at a far higher rate than a cutting tip, which is worth knowing before you size a cylinder.

Clean tips, do not drill them

Tip cleaner sets are sized to the standard orifice numbers. Running a cleaner through a tip restores the gas path. Drilling a tip out to a larger size changes the orifice geometry permanently and ruins the cut quality it was built for.

Counter pickup in North York.