Supporting guide for oxyacetylene torch

A supporting guide for an oxyacetylene torch provides a body having spaced legs defining a recess therebetween to carry gas supply pipes of the torch for releasable attachment of the supporting guide to the supply pipes. A body portion distal from the recess pivotally carries a disk carrying a support arm extending spacedly therefrom for pivotal motion relative to the body to support the torch and guide it on a workpiece or a template. The support arm is carried by the disk for adjustable extension and angulation relative to the body to regulate the distance of a torch nozzle from a workpiece and the angulation of the torch nozzle relative to the workpiece.

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION 
1. Related Applicatioon 
There are no applications related hereto heretofore filed in this or any 
foreign country. 
2. Field of Invention 
This invention relates generally to a supporting guide for oxyacetylene 
torches, and more particularly to such a guide that regulates the distance 
and angulation of a torch nozzle relative to a workpiece. 
BACKGROUND AND DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR ART 
Oxyacetylene torches have long been known and used for joining and severing 
various metallic materials, and especially ferrous metals. The history of 
such devices is long and during that historicity substantial knowledge has 
been developed concerning both torches and oxyacetylene welding and 
cutting of metals. Responsively apparatus and processes for their use have 
become increasingly sophisticated and complex, but problems still remain. 
The instant supporting guide provides an ancillary device for use on a 
torch to resolve some of those remaining problems. 
The control of cutting and welding torches both as to course of travel and 
position relative to a workpiece have presented problems throughout the 
history of the thermal joinder and shaping of metals and especially with 
oxyacetylene cutting of ferrous metals. Aside from maintaining 
configurational integrity, the positioning of a torch and its motion can 
and commonly do affect essentials of the cutting and joining processes, 
sometimes to change them even to the point of inoperativeness. These 
problems have been recognized and responsively various ancillary devices 
for supporting or guiding torches, or both, have become known, but such 
devices have not resolved problems which the instant supporting guide 
resolves or alleviates. 
For ease of consideration, supporting guide devices may be divided into two 
essentially different classes, with a first class providing mechanical 
systems that require no manual manipulation of the torch at all for its 
support or during its course of motion and a second class providing 
devices that aid guidance and support of a torch, but require direct 
manual manipulation by an operator to accomplish their motion. The instant 
invention is of the second class of devices and a member of a subclass 
that provides both guidance and support functions, as opposed to other 
subclasses providing only one or the other of those functions. 
Supporting guides for torches to have maximum utility must be releasably 
carried by a torch to allow use of a single supporting guide on different 
torches and must be usable on a substantial number of torches of differing 
design. Such supporting guides must also be usable on torches without 
requiring change or modification of the existing torch structures and must 
be retrofittable on a variety of existing torches of different design and 
manufacture. To accomplish this end, the instant supporting guide provides 
a body defining a cavity that is closable by a releasably maintained 
element to define a channel to allow positioning of torch gas feed pipes 
therein for fastenable interconnection of the supporting guide thereon. 
Almost all torches of present commerce and use provide exposed gas supply 
pipes extending between a valving structure and burner tip whereon the 
instant guide may be carried. Most modern torch designs provide either two 
vertically related or three vertically or triangularly related gas supply 
pipes to allow use of the instant guide, with an appropriately configured 
orifice, on any of these torch designs. If it is desired to use a single 
guide for all three types of torches, the body channel may be configured 
to accept the largest cross-sectional dimensions of any pipe configuration 
and provided with fillers to fasten about pipe configurations that are 
smaller, to contain and releasably fasten all of the configurations. This 
universality of application of the instant supporting guide provides 
distinguishment from prior devices of the second class that were 
configured for use on only one particular torch. 
To position a torch nozzle relative to a workpiece, a support arm is 
carried by the supporting guide body to extend therefrom and contact the 
workpiece, or a support immovably associated therewith, to support the 
torch during a course of motion. The instant support arm is adjustably 
carried by the body for predeterminable extension to adjustably regulate 
the distance between a torch nozzle and workpiece to maintain appropriate 
cutting and welding parameters. The support arm also is movably carried by 
the supporting guide body for pivotal motion in the plane perpendicular to 
the gas supply pipes to allow the support arm to extend in angulated 
orientation to the nozzle of the torch to aid the making of angulated cuts 
in a workpiece when the guide is supported either by a template or on the 
workpiece. 
The support arm also serves as a follower to direct torch motion along a 
course similar to a template configuration to allow the making of clean 
and regular cuts in metal with substantial configurational accuracy such 
as is made by a completely mechanically guided system of the first class. 
The support arm provides a particular configuration that allows its use 
with many types of templates heretofore used for such purpose. 
My invention resides not in any one of these features individually, but 
rather in the synergistic combination of all of its structures which 
necessarily give rise to the functions flowing therefrom as herein set 
forth and claimed. 
SUMMARY OF INVENTION 
My supporting guide for oxyacetylene torches provides a vertically elongate 
body defining an upper medial cavity to receive gas supply pipes of the 
torch, with a releasably fastenable top enclosing an upper portion of the 
cavity to form a channel and to fasten gas supply pipes of the torch 
therein. A portion of the body depending beneath the gas supply pipes 
defines a cylindrical orifice to movably carry a support arm disk for 
pivotal motion in a plane perpendicular to the gas supply pipes. An 
elongate arcuate channel extends through the lower portion of the body 
from the cylindrical orifice to allow passage and motion of a support arm 
therein. An elongate support arm having a threaded body portion depends 
from threaded engagement with the support arm disk, through the body slot 
and spacedly therebelow. The upper medial portion of the support arm 
threadedly carries a wing nut adjacent the lower surface of the body to 
fasten against the body to releasably maintain the support arm in a 
predetermined angular position and at an adjustable distance from the 
body. The outer end portion of the support arm defines head structure to 
serve as a support and a template follower. 
In creating such a device, it is: 
A principal object to provide a supporting guide having a body that fits 
about the gas supply pipes of an oxyacetylene torch to depend therefrom to 
support the torch nozzle at an adjustably determinable distance from and 
in adjustably determinable orientation angular relative to a workpiece and 
to serve as a template follower to guide the manual motion of the torch 
along a template surface. 
A further object is to provide such a supporting guide that defines an 
upper medial channel to fastenably receive gas supply pipes of 
commercially available torches having two vertically spaced pipes or three 
pipes spaced in vertical or triangular array. 
It is a further object to provide a guide with such an upper medial channel 
that may carry fillers to allow a single channel to be used with various 
gas supply pipe arrays, while maintaining secure releasable 
interconnection of the guide on the pipes. 
A still further object is to provide such a guide that has a movably 
carried support arm to allow variable extension from and angulation 
relative to the body to adjustably regulate the distance between a torch 
nozzle and workpiece and aid the making of angulated cuts in a workpiece. 
A still further object is to provide such a guide that has a support arm 
with a depending end structure that allows it to supportively move on a 
workpiece or on a support immovably associated with the workpiece and also 
to serve as a template follower to aid in making accurate clean cuts of 
substantial configurational accuracy. 
A still further object is to provide such a device that is of new and novel 
design, of rugged and durable nature, of simple and economic manufacture 
and one that is otherwise well suited to the uses and purposes for which 
it is intended. 
Other and further objects of my invention will appear from the following 
specification and accompanying drawings which form a part hereof. In 
carrying out the objects of my invention, however, it is to be understood 
that its features are susceptible of change in design and structural 
arrangement with only a preferred and practical embodiment of the best 
known mode being illustrated in the drawings and described in the 
accompanying specification and claims, as is required.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
My invention generally provides a supporting guide, for a welding torch 10, 
that has body 11 movably carrying support arm 12 extending spacedly 
therefrom. 
Modern oxyacetylene torches for welding and cutting metals, though of 
varying configurational detail, all have the same essential elements and 
quite similar essential configuration. A common generic form of welding 
torch 10 is illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 where it is seen to provide rearward 
handle 13 having means for attachment of flexible hoses of compressed gas 
supplies (not shown) and structurally carrying valving structure 14 having 
gas flow control handle 15 and regulator knob 16. The valving structure 14 
carries forwardly extending fixtures 17 interconnecting forwardly 
extending gas supply pipes 18. The forward portions of the gas supply 
pipes 18 carry burner tip elbow 19 which releasably carries burner tip 20 
extending therefrom perpendicularly to the gas supply pipes. This 
essential structure is common in substantially all oxyacetylene welding 
and cutting torches of present day commerce and use, though torches of 
various manufactures and those for particular uses differ in accidental 
features of both structure and configuration. It is with this type of 
welding torch that my supporting guide is operative. 
Substantially all modern oxyacetylene torches have two or more separated 
gas supply pipes extending a spaced distance between the valving structure 
14 and burner tip elbow 19, but the number of pipes and their array vary 
in torches of different manufacture and for different purposes. The gas 
supply pipes are generally of substantially the same diametrical size and 
the substantial majority of torches have two or three such pipes. Arrays 
of both two and three arrays of such pipes are commonly arranged in 
vertical alignment, though a minority of torches having three pipes 
provide a triangular array, generally with two pipes in horizontal 
alignment and the third pipe above or below the mid point between the two 
horizontal pipes. The instant supporting guide is usable with any of these 
pipe arrays and also with other arrays when appropriately configured. 
As seen especially in FIGS. 4-6, supporting guide body 11 provides U-shaped 
body element 21 having upwardly extending parallel legs 21a with coplanar 
upper surface to define recess 22 therebetween and lowermost curved 
portion 21b defining cylindrical channel 23 extending therethrough 
parallel to gas supply pipes 18 to hold a support arm disk. Arcuate 
support arm slot 24 is defined to extend perpendicularly to the axis of 
channel 23 to communicate between the cylindrical channel 23 and the 
exterior surface of lower curved body portion 21b to receive a depending 
support arm and allow motion of the support arm in the channel. Preferably 
channel 24 extends through an arc of approximately 180 degrees, but at 
least 90 degrees. The upper surfaces of the longitudinally medial portions 
of each leg 21a define downwardly extending threaded holes 24 to receive 
threaded fasteners to maintain a top element on the legs to enclose the 
upper portion of recess 22 to form a peripherally enclosed channel or 
orifice as illustrated. 
Top element 25 in the instance illustrated is of rectilinear peripheral 
configuration to fit over the upper end surfaces of legs 21a of the body 
element. The elongately medial portions of each side of the top element 
define similar holes 26 positioned to be axially coincident with holes 24 
defined in legs 21a to receive threaded fasteners 27, in the instance 
illustrated comprising headed thumb screws, fastenably extending between 
the top and legs. The lower laterally medial surface of top element 25 may 
define one or more channels 28 to fit about and better fasten gas supply 
pipes 18 carried in the recess 22 enclosed by the top element. 
Support arm cylinder 29 is a circular disk configured to fit in rotatable 
adjacency within cylinder channel 23, with an axial length equal to that 
of the cylindrical channel. The support arm cylinder 29 defines 
diametrically extending threaded hole 30 to threadedly receive a support 
arm 12. 
The support arm 12 provides elongate threaded body 31 configured to 
threadedly engage within hole 30 of the support arm cylinder 29. The outer 
or lower portion of the body 31 provides structurally joined square boss 
32 structurally carrying head 33, in the instance illustrated comprising a 
sector of a sphere, to provide a support arm with the general 
configuration of a common carriage bolt. Threaded body 31 carries 
threadedly engaged fastener 34, in the instance illustrated comprising a 
wing nut, to positionally maintain the threaded body 31 in the support arm 
29 and positionally maintain the angulation of the support arm relative to 
the body element 21 when fastened against the body. 
For the support guide to provide utility, it must releasably fit for 
positional maintenance upon the gas supply pipes 18 of a torch which it 
services. This fit may be accomplished directly by providing 
configurations of recess 22 and lower surface of top element 25 that 
releasably fit upon a particular supply pipe configuration for appropriate 
positional maintenance as shown in FIGS. 5-6. This, however, requires 
various different configurations of the surfaces defining the recess 22 
even to fit upon the three common types of gas supply pipe configurations, 
and may also require further particular configuration to fit upon other 
specific designs of gas pipe arrays used by different manufacturers. 
With use of filler blocks, as shown in FIGS. 7A-7C, a generically 
configured enclosed recess 22a may be designed for use with gas supply 
pipe configurations of the three common generic types and for additional 
particular configurations required by individual manufacturers. This 
recess 22a is formed with vertical and horizontal dimensions each at least 
as great as the largest corresponding dimensions of a particular pipe 
configuration, and larger if desired. Filler blocks then are designed to 
fit within this enclosed recess and about the gas supply pipes with 
sufficient engagement to fasten and positionally maintain the supporting 
guide on the pipes. 
For two vertically related supply pipes, as shown in FIG. 7A, two filler 
blocks 35 that are mirror images of each other about a vertical plane 
therebetween are formed to fit on the sides and about a portion of the 
pipes. The filler blocks 36 for the three pipe array of FIG. 7B are 
similar except the two lateral blocks 36a are configured with planar 
facing surfaces to fit adjacent the two sides of the three vertically 
related gas supply pipes, with inner surfaces in immediate adjacency to 
the outer surfaces of the pipes. Upper and lower filler blocks 36b extend 
between the vertically outer surfaces of the pipes to provide vertical 
positional maintenance of the pipes in recess 22a for positional 
maintenance. The filler blocks 37 of FIG. 7C for three triangularly 
arrayed gas supply pipes are positioned above the upper supply pipe or 
pipes and below the lower supply pipe or pipes without any adjacent 
surface contact between the fillers. 
The pipe facing surfaces of each filler may be particularly configured to 
fit about a portion of the adjacent pipe surfaces for appropriate friction 
that responsively begets positional maintenance of the supporting guide on 
the supply pipes. All of these fillers are positionally maintained within 
the enclosed recess 22 when the top element 25 is in position to enclose 
that recess, or they may be attached to the adjacent body surface by known 
joinder methods appropriate to the materials and their environment, if 
desired. 
Having described the structure of my support guide, its use and operation 
may be understood. 
A guide with parts formed according to the foregoing specification is 
assembled by inserting support arm cylinder 29 in cylinder channel 23 of 
body element 21 and moving it into the channel until hole 30 of the 
cylinder is aligned with arcuate slot 24 defined through the bottom curved 
portion 21b of the body. Fastener 34 then is threadedly engaged in the 
medial portion of threaded body 31 of the support arm 12 and the threaded 
body engaged in hole 30 defined in the support arm cylinder. The extension 
of body 31 into cylinder 29 is adjusted so that the support arm will have 
the proper extension from the body when the body is carried on a welding 
torch to be serviced, and the angular relation of the threaded body 31 is 
adjusted relative to body element 21 for the particular use desired. In 
this state, the fastener 34 is rotated to move adjacent to the lower 
surface of curved body portion 21b to fasten and positionally maintain the 
support arm in its adjusted position. 
Top element 25 then is removed by loosening thumb screws 27 and removing at 
least one thumb screw so that gas supply pipes 18 of a torch to be 
serviced may be inserted within recess 22 defined by the body element 21. 
If used, fillers appropriate for the particular gas supply pipe 
configuration are inserted. The gas pipes of a torch to be serviced are 
then positioned within recess 22. Top element 25 then is replaced in its 
normal position on body legs 21a and fastened by thumb screws 37 to 
positionally maintain the supporting guide on the gas supply pipes 18 for 
use. 
The use of the supporting guide to make a perpendicular linear cut in metal 
sheet material as guided by a template is shown in FIG. 1. The template 38 
in this instance is a piece of angle iron immovably maintained relative to 
the material 39 to be cut. Before making the cut, the supporting guide is 
attached to torch 10 and both the projection and angulation of support arm 
12 are adjusted by loosening fastener 34, manually moving the threaded 
body 31 to the proper position and then retightening the fastener against 
body 21 to maintain that position. The ignited torch then is placed with 
head 33 of the support arm 12 immediately adjacent a guiding surface of 
template 38 and moved along the template with constant positional 
relationship to the template to form cut 40 parallel to the template 
shape, in the instance illustrated a linear cut. 
The use of the supporting guide in making a free hand angulated cut is 
shown in FIG. 2. Here again the support arm 12 is manually adjusted to 
extend in angulated relationship to a plane through the axes of the 
welding pipes 18 of torch 10 by loosening fastener 34, manually 
manipulating the support arm 12 to the proper position and retightening 
the fastener. In this mode, the torch may make free hand cuts as guided by 
a user, but yet the torch will be supported at a constant distance from to 
the material 39 being cut and at an easily visually determinable angle to 
that material to aid torch manipulation to provide a smooth and regular 
cutting operation. 
The use of the supporting guide to make a horizontal cut 40 in a vertical 
workpiece 39 is shown in FIG. 3. The template 38, again an angle iron, is 
immovably affixed to the material 39 spacedly adjacent the position 
whereat the cut to be made. The template may be either above or below the 
proposed cut, but generally it is more practically operative if it is 
above the cut, as illustrated. The support arm 12 of the guide is manually 
adjusted as for the other cuts and supported on the template as shown, to 
be manually moved along the template to maintain the torch in appropriate 
position relative to the material 39 for proper cutting while following a 
course having the same configuration as the template and at a spaced 
distance therefrom. 
Though for simplicity of illustration my supporting guide is shown in use 
with linear pieces of angle iron, it is to be understood that it can be 
used with most types of templates that provide a surface or edge of the 
appropriate configuration and is positionally maintained relative to a 
workpiece to be operated upon. It is further to be understood that though 
the supporting guide is illustrated in cutting operations, it is equally 
applicable to welding, brazing or soldering, and though not so commonly 
used for those purposes they are within its ambit and scope. 
The foregoing description of my invention is necessarily of a detailed 
nature so that a specific embodiment of its best mode might be set forth 
as required, but it is to be understood that various modifications of 
detail, rearrangement and multiplication of parts might be resorted to 
without departing from its spirit, essence or scope. 
Having thusly described my invention, what I desire to protect by letters 
patent, and