Abstract
Cutting of metal by the oxygen flame has been practiced commercially for more than 25 years by means of hand-guided blowpipes. The hand cutter is largely used for scrap cutting and by concerns whose work involves the use or manipulation of steel plate, forgings, or sections. The work produced by the hand cutter is rough and inaccurate. The paper describes the use of the machine designed to hold the cutter rigidly and that propels the cutter by a simple feed motion at a uniform speed. Great progress has been made in the past 10 years in the development of these machines, and they now are considered as reliable, quick, and accurate shop tools. The paper describes the various machines and their uses, and gives instances of their application to difficult work, with the resulting reduction in costs.
