GTT Bobcat Torch – carbon issue resolved

….I hope! I’ll know for sure after a few more sessions.

Some of you know that I have had carbon issues with my Bobcat torch for a very long while. It has been driving me insane, and this morning’s session was the same… I was thinking this morning I have no other choice but to pack it up and send it back to GTT for a service.

I thought I had fixed the problem a few times in the past after tweeking things here and there, but it comes right back in varied levels of carbon. The beads lose their vibrant colour and sometimes go completely scummy grey. I have tightened up my OxyCon connecters after discovering a little leak and consequently low Oxy PSI,..and I also give the jets a clean with the little tool and blow any build up out with Oxy before each session. While these two things have made some significant improvements, there was still signs of carbon scum in my beads… sometimes it’s minimal and doesn’t affect the design especially if it is organic, but lately because I’m making lots of dots on dots beads,..the carbon has ruined more beads than I can use grrrrrr.

After making six more scum beads this morning, I had nothing to lose so I decided to ignore everything I have learned about how the flame should look for a neutral flame with regards to length and shape of inner cone, with tiny yellow tips blah blah blah. I adjusted the flame so that the inner cone had no sign of yellow tips at all, and the inner cone flames were very straight and quite a bit shorter than usual. The Bobcat was turned up to just under the point where it would hiss real loudly. You know the sound.

I made six more beads and the vibrant colour is back. As a bonus, I didn’t need to keep adjusting the knobs (due to them creeping , which was part of the carbon problem also I think) like I usually have to do.

I will continue testing this through the week, but I’m pretty sure the carbon issue with the Bobcat is now resolved. Whoot!