What is the fastest way to heat up steel tubing?

Question

I need to heat up the outside of the tubing to melt something inside it. I have to do this on both ends of the tubing and I have alot of these tubings to do. I am doing this with a single torch at the moment and it takes about 5 minutes to do one side. Should I use more torches? I don't want to deform the tubing in anyway. A furnace will take too long. Any advice would be great. Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

You could use inductive heating. This would heat the tubing uniformly on all sides. More torches would work as well and you could even turn the torches down so they don't melt the steel. By heating the entire outside evenly you would get quicker melting of the material inside.

It's not really the temperature that's important but the amount of heat available. One small but very hot flame won't do as fast of a job as 4 larger but cooler flames heating all sides of the tubing at once.

You say you have to do both ends. Set up something so both ends are done at the same time.

Answer 2

What kind of torch are you using? And what fuel are you burning? Acetylene? Oxygen?

And what steel alloy are you using? The difference in melting temperature could decide whether or not you would be better off using a hotter-burning torch or not.

(Also, if you have a big enough furnace you could put all the tubes in at once.....just a thought)