Should I get a Solidox torch?
 

Anyone used a Solidox torch before? Think it would be suitable for fillet brazing a frame?

I'm looking at one on Craigslist, but there's very little info online, so I'd be interested to hear peoples' experience with these.

Thanks!

Darin Wick

While I have no direct experience with this torch set I do have some comments from years of second hand information. These types of solid OX and fuel units have a poor record for frame work. The duration of the OX and fuel is short and the cost begins to add up. I have read reports of not being able to braze a BB or crown before the stuff ran out. Many have posted that they ended up moving on to a standard OA set up. Given the recent increase of propane and O concentrator sourcing of O it seems that the low cost future is in this pathway.

Some of us have been doing this building stuff for decades but never "went pro". If I had made the right choices in my tools right from the start I'd saved thousands of dollars. Andy.

https://www.google.com/search?q=soli...=solidox+torch

My dad bought one of these maybe forty five years ago from a Sears surplus outlet. I am and was then a welder, so I had to try out his little gimmick on some small brazing projects. It did the job, though the oxygen generator was slightly erratic, and not very long lasting. As the thing got older over the years, I tried it a couple of more times, but the oxygen feed got worse. I think the pellets slowly chemically degrade just sitting in the can. A couple of decades of this and you can throw the pellets in a campfire and they don't even burn, where you would expect the fire to really flare up. So I would not buy any of the pellets offered over the internet. I don't recall them having been vacuum-packed, and you don't know if the owner has taken the lid off the can, just to take a look.

FWIW, my dad, an airline pilot, told me he thought that the emergency oxygen generators on the airplanes worked on a similar chemical reaction.

But you still might want to pick up a SolidOx kit. Just figure that you are getting it for the torch, the two tips, and the propane tank valve, plus maybe the hoses, if they are still good. You can still hook it to a propane bottle. And small bottles of oxygen are available in a range of sizes. You'll have to get an oxygen regulator, new or used or rebuilt. If you want to run the torch off of a propane bottle larger than the little male-threaded hardware store bottles, you'll also need a propane regulator. The idea is that with a little creative adapting of used parts, you can use that torch, which you ought to be able to get for nothing or next-to-nothing at a yard sale or on Craigslist. Regardless of what the seller says, tell him the oxygen pellets add no value, and I'd think fifteen bucks would be fair for the torch/tips/propane valve. Oxy-Propane is a nice clean flame, moreso than oxy-acetylene (and cheaper), and plenty hot for brazing light sections. I know nothing about bike-building, and joined this site just to answer your questions, which I encountered on a Google search.

there is some kind of reaction in the airplane oxygen masks, they get really hot

Another reason you might want to find an old SolidOx (if cheap) is to add it to the toolbox of an RV, camper-van, or travel trailer. After all, the vehicle already carries a propane supply, and you can tap into that. The torch takes a negligible amount of space, and the little O2 bottle and some rod and a coil of hose not much. Who knows, you might be the emergency-fix hero-welder at the campground!

How True! I built my first frame in 1977 and bought a Solid OX from Sears. It was a joke, the oxygen lasted 3 minutes at most. The pellets were stupidly expensive. I used it to preheat dropouts and forkcrowns until I discovered silver braze and could use MAPP for everything. Should have bought an Actelylene/Oxy kit then instead of all the Mapp bottles I went through since.