Carlisle CC vs CC+ vs CC++: Which Combination Torch?

Short answer: The Carlisle CC, Carlisle CC+ and Carlisle CC++ are one design at three sizes. Every one of them is a Hybrid (surface and premix) combination torch: a premixed centerfire that burns like a Carlisle hand torch, sitting inside a separately valved surface-mix outer fire. What changes as you climb is the outer fire. Carlisle’s CC-family instruction sheet, as our catalog records it, gives the CC two rows of outer porting, the CC+ three and the CC++ four, and everything else that separates them follows from that: a bigger soaking envelope, a bigger oxygen appetite, and a bigger price. Buy the CC if your work is goblets, stemware and detail at a scale one hot point and a moderate envelope can cover. Buy the CC+ if you run production and need a bigger envelope. Buy the CC++ only if you know you need the largest outer fire Carlisle makes and have the oxygen supply to feed it. Hydrogen does not separate them: Carlisle’s sheet runs hydrogen only in the dedicated CC-H configuration, whichever size you buy.

If you are still deciding between a combination torch and an all-surface-mix one, start with surface mix vs premix torches; this article assumes you have settled on Carlisle’s design and want the right size of it.

The three at a glance

Editor’s note: The CC price is a “from” figure on Carlisle’s own store, read 2026-10-17, so options add to it; the CC+ and CC++ are not in that store, so their figures are our catalog estimates, not maker prices. The oxygen figures are our comparative placements of a typical largest working flame, not Carlisle-published working numbers, and Carlisle publishes no jet count for any of the three. Confirm the current price and spec with Carlisle before you buy.

What stays the same

It helps to be clear about how much these torches share, because a buyer comparing them is not choosing between designs. Carlisle builds all three around the same idea: a premixed centerfire that mixes fuel and oxygen upstream and delivers a hot, defined point, and a surface-mixed outer fire that keeps the gases separate until the face and produces the broad, gentle envelope. The two fires have their own valves, but Carlisle’s instruction sheet says to keep the centerfire on during burner operation and warns against prolonged centerfire use with the outer fire fully shut off, so follow the sheet’s procedure rather than treating either fire as optional.

Because they share a design they share hardware. Every one of the three carries four color-coded metering valves at the back of the body, red for fuel and green for oxygen, one pair per fire. All three take the same family of removable centerfire tips, and the instruction sheet is one document covering the whole series. The catalog also records the same recommended pressures for all of them: on natural gas, 5 psi gas and 10 psi oxygen; on propane, 5 psi gas and 25 psi oxygen. Both of those gas pressures are well above unboosted household natural gas, so a CC of any size on house gas is a booster question, which the natural gas conversion guide covers. The manual takes precedence over any figure here; set pressures from the sheet for your exact torch and gas.

The character of the flame is shared too, and so are the trade-offs. Our catalog notes the CC as loud and prone to a backfire pop if it is shut down out of sequence, and there is no reason to expect the larger two to be quieter: a bigger outer fire is more of the same, not a different noise. Learn the startup and shutdown order in Carlisle’s sheet before the first light-up on any of them.

What changes: the outer fire

The one mechanical difference is the number of rows of outer porting, and it is also the one you can verify with your eyes. Two rows on the CC, three on the CC+, four on the CC++. Carlisle describes the CC+ as the larger version of the CC with an added row of tubes for a bigger flame, and the CC++ as the largest burner in the family with an additional row on top of that.

More rows means a wider, deeper soaking envelope around the same centerfire. That is the whole reason to step up. The premixed center is the family’s detail tool, and it does not grow when you buy the bigger torch; the envelope does. So the question to ask is how much glass you need to keep hot around the point you are working, not how hot you need the point. A goblet maker keeping a bowl and a stem in play needs an envelope, but a modest one. A production bench turning out large pieces all day, or a sculptor holding a big mass at working temperature, is the buyer the extra rows exist for.

Carlisle’s capacity figures say the same thing from the other direction. The catalog records the manual’s maximum capacity at 180 cubic feet per hour of oxygen for the CC on natural gas and 360 for the CC+, double. Those are ceilings, the most the torch can pass, not what a working flame draws, and we do not publish a separate ceiling for the CC++ because the shared sheet does not give one. Do not size your supply from them. Our working estimates are ~26 LPM for the CC, ~30 LPM for the CC+ and ~33 LPM for the CC++, which is a gentler climb than the ceilings suggest, and how many LPM does my torch need explains why capacity and demand are different questions.

Centerfire tips and fuel

The centerfire tip is the part that decides which fuel a CC runs, and it is where the three torches diverge on paper. Carlisle offers three tips for the family, as our catalog records from the manual:

• #5, the largest piloted orifice and the most heat, Carlisle’s natural gas standard.
• #3, a smaller orifice with a more defined flame, suited to propane.
• Hydrogen, unpiloted, with the same orifice size as the #5, for hydrogen only.

Carlisle states that the piloted #3 and #5 tips will be damaged by hydrogen, so a hydrogen torch needs the hydrogen tip, never a piloted one pressed into service. The family’s instruction sheet goes further: it lists hydrogen for the CC-H model only. Hydrogen is therefore not a tip you swap into a standard CC, CC+ or CC++ later; it is a configuration you order from Carlisle, at any of the three sizes, and our catalog lists only propane and natural gas for the standard torches. If hydrogen matters to your work, read hydrogen vs propane for glassworking and settle the CC-H order with Carlisle before you pick a size.

On propane or natural gas, all three behave alike: the #5 on house gas, the #3 on propane, and the outer fire tuned on its own pair of valves.

Build and options

The CC carries an aluminium finned heat exchanger behind the nose, standard on any CC burner according to Carlisle, there to shed heat from the body. The CC+ series adds a perforated stainless heat shield as standard, and the catalog records a stainless heat shield as standard on the CC++ too. The shell is brass on all three, with stainless offered as an option.

Two options are specific to the top of the range. The CC++ ships two-hose standard or with four separate inlets for foot controllers, which suits a repetitive production bench where the operator wants to modulate gas with a foot and keep both hands on the glass. And the RP is a CC+ variant specified by Roger Parramore, with a stainless nose cone, 45 degree inlets and a rack and pinion mount; it is a CC+ underneath, so everything above about the CC+ applies to it. The Carlisle GR is a further relative that Carlisle describes as having a flame similar to the CC+ and a base that removes for a lathe burner assembly; it is outside this comparison, but a lathe buyer should know it exists, and Carlisle GR vs GTT Mirage covers it.

None of the three is the Carlisle Mini CC. It shares the name and not the design: Carlisle describes it as seven stainless tubes in a brass body, our catalog records it as Surface mix throughout with no premixed center, and it sells for $340. A “CC” at a Mini CC price is a Mini CC.

Which one to buy

The CC is the right answer for more buyers than its position as the smallest suggests. Our catalog files it for goblets, stemware, detail and soft glass at an intermediate skill level, and that is a large share of the people who want a premixed point inside a soaking envelope. Its price is the lowest of the three by a wide margin, its oxygen estimate is the one a serious single-bench supply can meet, and the two-row envelope is not small. It is loud and it wants the shutdown sequence respected, which are the honest reasons to look past it.

The CC+ is the production torch. The third row buys a noticeably larger envelope for a price jump that is real but not the jump to the CC++. The catalog rates it intermediate to advanced and files it for production, goblets and general work. It is also the torch most people mean when they compare Carlisle against GTT’s flagships, which is the comparison Carlisle CC+ vs GTT Delta Elite takes on.

The CC++ is for a bench that has already outgrown the CC+. Four rows, the largest outer fire in the family, foot-controller plumbing as an option, and a price in the pro band. The catalog files it for production and large work at an advanced skill level, and the oxygen estimate is the highest of the three. If you cannot say what the fourth row would do for your work that the third does not, you do not need it yet.

If you are shopping used, the same three torches are separated by the same visible feature, and inspecting a used Carlisle CC walks through counting the rows, reading the tip, checking the exchanger and shield, and why internal repairs go back to Carlisle.

Related guides

• Surface mix vs premix torches
• Inspecting a used Carlisle CC
• How many LPM does my torch need
• Hydrogen vs propane for glassworking
• Carlisle CC+ vs GTT Delta Elite
• Carlisle CC vs GTT Mirage
• GTT Delta Mag vs Carlisle CC++

Sources

• Carlisle Machine Works, CC bench burner
• Carlisle Machine Works, CC Plus bench burner
• Carlisle Machine Works, CC Plus Plus bench burner
• Carlisle Machine Works, CC Burner Series Instruction Sheet (PDF)
• Carlisle Machine Works, Mini CC bench burner
• Carlisle Machine Works web store, CC Burner