Plasma torch discovery by Bob Gage

Bob Gage at Union Carbide Speedway Labs (Indianapolis) in the 1950s was studying water-cooled GTA arcs on copper and serendipitously drilled a hole in the copper plate; the plasma flame shooting through the hole was the first plasma torch and led to constricted-arc processes.

The whole idea of plasma processing or plasma cutting was sort of discovered serendipitously by a guy named Bob Gage, who was at Union Carbide Speedway Labs in Indianapolis, Indiana. In the 1950s he was studying gas tungsten arc torches without melting of steel, using water-cooled copper plates. For whatever reason he decided to drill a hole in the water-cooled copper plate, and what he saw was — he said he made the first plasma torch — the flame was shooting out through the hole in the copper. When I say plate, it probably wasn't much more than a sixteenth or eighth of an inch thick. But the plasma flame was shooting out through the hole, and he thought, that's interesting. Then he started thinking, could he use it for anything? And that's where they started looking at constricted gas tungsten arcs.