My office manager was getting rid of some of her hand tools, and knew I’d be interested in buying an old torch she had brought in for me to see.<\/p>\n
Oh yeah. She knows me well. \u00a0It was an oldie, a brand I’d never heard of, with a red anodyzed aluminum handle and dark, aged brass fittings. \u00a0 The hoses were still supple and usable, but also dark with age. \u00a0It was an acetylene and oxygen torch, and came with a \u00a0handful of extra screw-on tips. \u00a0I had to own it, I knew.<\/p>\n
Call me reckless, but I had to find a moment this afternoon to hook it up to my propane tank and oxygen cylinder and try it out. \u00a0The fittings seemed to screw on tight to their respective regulators, the hoses seemed functional, and I was ready to go.<\/p>\n
So what did mister goldsmith\/instructor do next, before applying a flame to the end of the torch?<\/p>\n
Why, I smelled the gas coming out, that’s what. \u00a0Yup, that knob lets out the propane, and I can smell it!<\/p>\n
That other knob, \u00a0that’s for the oxygen, not much of a smell, but I can feel it hitting my nose and face.<\/p>\n
Reassuring, knowing those knobs let out that gas. \u00a0I applied the lighter, and the old torch lit up perfectly.<\/p>\n
There had been a slight red flag of danger from the beginning, but my experience and luck told me to follow through to ignition.<\/p>\n
Now that the new old torch had proven itself, and \u00a0I hadn’t been blown up or disfigured, it was disconnected, and coiled with its hose on an unused workbench, like a sleeping serpent. \u00a0I’d steal glances at it lying there whenever I walked by. \u00a0It really needs my help, I realize.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, I will find the time in my busy day to take part that torch, and lovingly polish those brass fittings until they gleam, and then reassemble it to look brand new again. \u00a0It will hold a valued place in my collection of working torches.<\/p>\n
—Jay Whaley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My office manager was getting rid of some of her hand tools, and knew I’d be interested in buying an old torch she had brought in for me to see. Oh yeah. She knows me well. \u00a0It was an oldie, a brand I’d never heard of, with a red anodyzed aluminum handle and dark, aged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jaywhaley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}