Atomic Hydrogen

Do any of you guys who have been around for a long time know anything about atomic hydrogen welding? What I've been able to learn about it sounds intriguing. Seems like it could still be quite useful. I've seen a few references to it still being used for repairing dies, but not much else. Any info would be appreciated.

Rick A.

Atomic Hydrogen Welding

It was the foreruner to TIG welding, circa 1930's-40's. It consisted of a hand held AC arc torch that held an arc between two tungsten electrodes, with a hydrogen gas shield around the arc or in a gas chamber to do welding in. It looked exactly like the "twin carbon arc torch" that was sold with AC buzz box welders in the 50's-60's, if you have ever seen one of those. TIG has mostly replaced both.

Alphonse:

Yeah, that's about all I've been able to learn about it, but it gets about half again as hot as oxy-acy and can melt tungsten. I think it would be fun to play with, but I don't imagine there are any of those machines left.

Rick A.

I have a carbon arc torch purchased from Sears some 30 years ago. The arc is very hot, huge and difficult to aim. Works OK for rough heating some items. An A/O torch flame does a better job of putting heat into an item since the heat is more directional. You can point the electric arc but it is rather soft and has little force behind it.

As to melting Tungsten, I never seem to have a problem melting the electrodes in my TIG if the pedal gets mashed too far.

You can have all the degrees of temperature but the trick is getting it into the work.

One of the books I have describes the process thusly: "An arc is maintained between two adjustable electrode holders, and a stream of hydrogen is ejected from a nozzle and directed between the two electrodes. The arc breaks down the molecular hydrogen into atomic hydrogen. When the atomic hydrogen stream touches metal, it recombines into molecular hydrogen, liberating considerable heat in the process. The process uses AC power and produces temperatures of 7500deg F."

General Electric made the unit shown in the book.

Interesting, with a video:

http://www.specialwelds.com/underwater-welding/atomic-hydrogen-welding.htm

Atomic Torch

I have a Miller Model 100 HVAP Atomic Hydrogen Welder. It was built in 1973 and is one of the very last machines Miller built having stopped taking orders for delivery of such machines on 07-01-73. It has a Buds Atomic Torch head from Buds Welding in Ft. Worth Texas. I was first introduced to the process in 1973 when I worked for Colt Ind. Fairbanks Morse Co. as an Overhead Chain and Lifting Equipment Safety Inspector. When I was there through the 1970's, they had a General Electric Atomic Hydrogen Welder that we used to weld on all the lifting equipment. It was bought new by Fairbanks in ether 1953 or 55. That machine also had a Buds Torch head on it, and at the time Buds was the only place left to buy anything for these machines. That business is gone now and another welding supply house is on that location. One of the nice things about the AH process is that the hydrogen, when burning in the presence of the arc, converts to a plasma form creating not only the very high 3700 to 7500 F. temperature, but also forming an absolutely pure atmosphere around the arc welding area. When welding, every once in a while a little puddle of slag will form which will pop right to the surface and float there. If you stop and chip it out it's like a glass material, but if you kept welding it would float on top and no effort would allow it down into the weld. Even after working a piece with the slag remaining on it, the x-rays of the work were always perfect. The machine Fairbanks had and the machine I have are the only ones I have ever seen.

Wouldnt be too hard to build one. It looks like a transformer from a plasma cutter ought to do the trick. I am guessing the arc is AC unless one of the electrodes is larger than the other. Cant tell from the photo.

But 300V ocv is a bit scary with everything exposed like that. The process is somewhat like a plasma welder. I think it should be possible to redesign the torch to something a little safer.

Hsemover:

It sounds like it could still be a useful process. Do you still use it? I envy you having maybe one of the last units. I'm unlikely to find one- considering building one, as Macona suggests. I'm thinking it would be cheaper than buying a decent quality Tig unit and the main operating expense would be the hydrogen, comparable to the cost of the argon for the Tig. There are probably still others gathering dust in back corners of shops somewhere, with nobody knowing what they're for. It seems sad to me to see old but useful technologies fall by the wayside like that. Someday someone will rediscover it and be hailed a genius!

Rick A.

I think plasma welding would have many of the benefits of Atomic Hydrogen as well. Its a real neat process and very controllable. There are console available that will turn a tig machine into a plasma welder. Thermal Arc also sells a machine called a Optima 150 that does everything.

I uderstand it makes a good weld, but I found an Ultima 150 for sale used for over $2K. The advantage of the atomic hydrogen, it seems, is that one could make (or, with a lot of luck, buy) the unit for a small fraction of that and the operating cost would be, basically, the hydrogen and maybe the tungsten electrodes, which might be comparable or cheaper than the consumables for the tig unit. Cheapskate that I am, I'm always looking at the cost angle!

Rick A.

Oops, yeah, Ultima 150. I was thinking optima from the pulser control on my XMT.

I have seen some ultimas go on ebay for near nothing.

Building a AH welding unit?

I'm not sure how easy it would be to convert a power unit for this purpose. The higher voltage is the catch. 250 to 300 volts is required on the output whereas 30 to 40 volts is standard on any other welding process. Also there is a start stop relay cycle that activates/kills the current and the gas valve which you do not see in any other type of unit. If any of you are going to try to build one I'll be glad to help with info from my unit. Pardon me if I don't respond regularly. I only check in on occasion.

Like I said early one could use a plasma cutter power supply. Probably even use the plasma cutters solenoid valve. You would have to bypass the pressure sensor as I dont think you want hydrogen at 50+ PSI. You could use an old torch lead.

From what I've read, it seems that the 300 v. is required to ignite the hydrogen, but much less is required to maintain the arc. 60-80 v is mentioned as adequate for an efficient welding arc in this link:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q="irving+langmuir+and+atomic+hydrogen"&btnG=Search

It also contains a sketch of the wiring of the welder and discusses the amperages used and compares the atomic hydrogen torch with oxy-acy. It seems like the process has some advantages that would render it useable today.

Rick A.

Go to Miller Weldings web page at; www.millerwelds.com Click on Service, then click on Owners manuals, and click on Model #100HVAP. Here you will be able to download and print the entire manual which contains the wiring diagram for the machine. I think a person can take a common stick welding machine and convert it by adding the components to address the few different aspects of this process. I'll be posting some pictures of my machine and it's side components/torch etc. in the near future.

Plasma power supplies are around 300v OCV and run around 100v under load. Arc gap will determine final voltage as it is a constant current power supply.

An old cheap transformer based plasma cutter would be a good start. An inverter based machine wont work because you need AC out. You would have to come up with some sort of tapped reactor like that miller machine has to regulate current.

No, a stick machine wont work. Only 70v ocv on a stick machine. About 1/4 of what you need. Maybe 4 in series.

That Miller is a big machine; the only other pic I've seen of an AH welder looked like a small benchtop unit. I'm glad they still have the manual- I happen to know where there's an old plasma cutter, like you mention, Macona, that I may have to look into.

Been waiting a day since I found this thread in a Google search...

I bought a GE Atomic Hydrogen Welding Transformer from a friend, a retired aircraft machinist.
I've been trying to find out more info about this beast.
It's in excellent condition, will try to post pix.

I talked to his brother, at his funeral, and he said it sounded like the Second Coming™ when he used it.

I need to know what pressure to run the H2 at.

I'm not a welder, but I am very good at soldering and reasonable at brazing.
This thing seems to work much like a torch, the "flame" is pretty tight and well defined at 12-15 psi on the H2.

It has a "start" pedal, then you vary the flame with the trigger on the hand-piece.

Here's what I have...

http://gallery.me.com/zac4mac/100008

Zack

Zack,
I don't recognize the machine you have, but then I've never seen many of them. The torch you have is a GE torch. I have one just like it that came with the machine I now have. The thing to do with the gas pressure is to play with it and set the pressure as low as you can. The last time I ran one was in 1981 and we were using a flowmeter then. Unfortunately the two other guys I worked with that would remember these things are deceased, so I'm relearning myself having just found this machine last year. I have a regular gauge regulator with this one so I'm adjusting to it but I have only run it once so far and have been busy with summer work for now. The screaming sound that goes with this process is part and parcel of this process. It never bothered me but most everyone around the shop just hated that machine. Most of them have a start stop button. This is the first time I've heard of a start pedal. You play the arc on the metal and create a puddle, then feed in the filler rod with the other hand as needed. Thats pretty much it. Play with it a while and see what you get.