Oxy-fuel welding and cutting

By 1903, when French engineers Edmond Fouché and Charles Picard combined oxygen and acetylene into a controlled flame hot enough to melt steel, they were harvesting a convergence. The oxy-fuel torch was inevitable—three separate technological streams finally meeting.

The first stream began in 1892, when Canadian inventor Thomas Willson, attempting to produce aluminum in an electric arc furnace, accidentally created calcium carbide instead. When quenched in water, it released enormous quantities of acetylene—a hydrocarbon that, when burned with pure oxygen, generated a flame 1,000°C hotter than any other known fuel. By 1897, acetylene generators were lighting homes, railways, and mines.

The second stream emerged from Carl von Linde's refrigeration laboratories. In 1895, Linde achieved large-scale air liquefaction, extracting pure oxygen at industrial rates. His first commercial oxygen plant opened in 1903—the same year Fouché and Picard filed their patent. The timing was not coincidental.

The third stream was metallurgical demand. Skyscrapers, ships, bridges, and railways required methods to cut and join thick steel plate. Forge welding was labor-intensive; riveting added weight and cost. The construction industry needed a portable heat source that could melt steel precisely where workers stood.

When combined, the resulting flame reached 3,480°C—hot enough to melt iron, steel, and most alloys. A welder could carry two cylinders anywhere, strike a flame, and either fuse metals together or cut through steel plate. By the 1910s, oxy-fuel welding dominated shipbuilding.

Yet the technology carried seeds of obsolescence. Arc welding had existed since the 1880s; by 1927, improved electrode manufacturing dropped prices and arc welding began displacing oxy-fuel for production work. Oxy-fuel cutting persists for thick steel plate, but the torch's dominance lasted barely 25 years.