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Excerpt from A Practical Manual of Autogenous Welding (Oxy-Acetylene): With a Chapter on the Cutting of Metals With the Blowpipe<br><br>Autogenous welding by oxy-hydrogen and oxy-acetylene blowpipes has, within the last few years, been applied in thousands of workshops. In spite of the fact that these applications have, at least in many cases, been undertaken without precise methods, without theoretical or practical knowledge, in a word, without technique, it has become an extremely important process capable of numerous and varied applications in all branches of metallic construction and repair. A great future can be foreseen for this process from the moment its technique becomes known to the welder, and when manufacturers who use the process realise that knowledge and reflection are at least as important as skill and dexterity of hand.<br><br>Autogenous welding is certainly the one process of construction and repair that requires, from top to bottom of its application, most reflection, intelligence, and conscientiousness.<br><br>It is, for the welder, a trade which differentiates it from the majority of others in this sense that mechanical work is completely excluded from its practice, and that an immediate judgment cannot always be passed on the realisation, more or less perfect, of an intimate joining of which the metal holds the secret.<br><br>This handbook is intended for the welder as well as for all those who wish to acquire a simple and reliable technique in the art of autogenous welding. It has been simplified by the omission of all intricate scientific considerations relevant only to a more advanced study of the subject, but it has not been deprived of the fundamental and technical principles serving as the base for all the applications of the science.<br><br>Such a work should not frighten the practitioner. Even the least inexpert welder will find useful instruction relating to manipulation, methods of operation, dexterity of hand, various apparatus and t