In Waco, Texas, the famous 1870 suspension bridge spanning the Brazos River was our main destination on a December 2024 Texas road trip, an impressive riveted historic bridge. West of the Waco suspension bridge is the Washington Avenue pin-connected steel Pennsylvania through-truss, opened in 1902. On a previous trip in 2019, I photographed a few of its connections; during our time in Waco in 2024, I spent more time studying this bridge. The shop-riveted steel truss bridge was fabricated in 1901, and of special interest to me were the riveted angle and plate corner brackets. It can be seen that the bracket plate decorative details were punched out, a feature I’ve seen on other historic fabricated iron and steel structures. Before the oxygen-fuel flame cutting process became a steel fabricator’s essential tool in steel fabrication, the shear and the punch press were used to slot, notch, or cope structural members. A few photographs accompanying this article show machine cutting and punching where today oxygen-fuel and other advanced cutting processes would produce machine precision cuts.
Oxygen-Fuel flame cutting was first made commercially available in 1905 by Felix Jottrand, a Belgian, who patented the process the same year. Today the primary fuel gas used in the hand flame cutting process is acetylene. Of all the industrial tools I’ve used in my career in steel fabrication, the oxygen acetylene cutting process is one I most enjoy working with. Vern Mesler, 2025
