Carlisle CC vs GTT Phantom: Which Production Bench Burner?

Short answer: The Carlisle CC ($2,052 on Carlisle’s store) and the GTT Phantom ($1,425 list for the standard bench torch) are both serious production bench burners, and both list fuel pressures above house pressure at full flame. The CC manual specs 5 psi natural gas with 10 psi oxygen, or 5 psi propane with 25 psi oxygen; GTT’s own flow rate chart lists the Phantom at 10 psi fuel and 35 psi oxygen at its largest usable flame on propane. Either way, plan the gas side around a booster or bottled propane rather than a bare household line. The real contrast is the flame and the oxygen behind it. The CC is a classic scientific-lineage cannon burner with a premixed center fire inside a surface-mix outer, placed at about 26 LPM of oxygen at full flame in our catalog. The Phantom is a 22-jet Triple Mix surface-mix torch whose largest usable flame GTT puts at about 16.5 LPM. If you want the two-flame cannon style and have the oxygen to feed it, the CC rewards it. If you want a leaner oxygen supply and Triple Mix chemistry control, the Phantom asks less of your oxygen system and costs about $600 less.

Both torches run propane or natural gas, and both sit well past the beginner tier, so the question that decides most purchases is which one your gas and oxygen supply can actually feed.

The two designs, briefly

The CC is one of the oldest production torch designs still made. Carlisle has been building burners since 1918 (originally as Carlisle Gas Burner Corp), and the CC itself dates to 1939, developed in conjunction with Corning Inc for scientific glassworking. The company calls it a “cannon style” burner: a brass shell (stainless optional) with an aluminum finned heat exchanger and four color-coded metering valves, green for oxygen and red for gas, with crossover attachments so a standard CC needs only two feed hoses. It produces two distinctive flames: a premixed centerfire that is hot and detailed, and a surface-mix outer fire that is bushy and soaking. Three centerfire tips are offered; the #5 (the largest piloted orifice) is the natural gas standard, while the smaller, more defined #3 suits propane. In our catalog the CC is classified as a hybrid burner, a premixed centre fire inside a surface-mix outer, the classification our catalog gives Carlisle’s full-size CC family (CC, CC+, CC++) and the GR, but not the all-surface-mix Mini CC.

The Phantom is a two-stage GTT torch: a Lynx 7-jet center fire (the center stage is literally a GTT Lynx, which we compare with the CC on its own in GTT Lynx vs Carlisle CC) surrounded by a ring of 15 outer jets, 22 jets total. GTT describes it as completely surface mix using the company’s patented Triple Mix technology, which surrounds the fuel with oxygen and injects oxygen directly down the fuel stream so the fuel burns completely. The claimed result, in GTT’s own framing, is a hotter, cleaner flame with a chemistry range from fuel-rich reduction through neutral to oxidizing and over-oxidizing, and a character range from soft and bushy to hard and driving. It comes in Standard or Snub Nose versions with a 4-stud manifold, ships with a base, instructions, cleaning kit, and 3/16 inch hose with adapters to 1/4 inch grade T hose, and is also offered as a hand torch with a thumb switch for the outer fire and with a compressed-air option. For the mechanism in depth, see our Triple Mix technology guide.

Side by side

Editor’s note: the oxygen figures above are max-usable-flame placements, not minimums; both torches spend most of a working day well below them. The CC’s 26 LPM is an owner-judgment placement in our catalog (roughly GTT Mirage class; see Carlisle CC vs GTT Mirage), while the Phantom’s 16.5 LPM comes from GTT’s published flow-rates table on propane. Different measurement bases, so treat the comparison as approximate.

Gas pressure: both want more than a house line

Residential natural gas is delivered at roughly 6 to 8 inches of water column, commonly cited as about 7 inches WC, which is approximately 0.25 psi. That is the number both of these torches have to be measured against.

The full-size CC manual wants 5 psi of natural gas at the torch, twenty times what a house line delivers, along with 10 psi of oxygen. On propane it wants 5 psi gas and 25 psi oxygen. There is no regulator trick that gets a household gas meter to 5 psi; you need a booster. G-TEC, which manufactures torch boosters, builds units that raise utility natural gas from house pressure into the 5 to 25 psi range, from the small TB-15 up to TB-250 and TB-500 units sized for schools. That is the infrastructure the CC assumes: a shop supply, not a wall tap. Follow the CC manual’s pressures exactly; the manual takes precedence over anything written here.

The Phantom is not the exception it is sometimes taken for. GTT’s reputation for quarter-psi fuel comes from its smallest models: its flow rate chart starts the Cricket, Bobcat, Scorpion and Sidewinder at 1/4 psi, which is house-line territory. The Phantom’s row on the same chart reads 10 psi fuel and 35 psi oxygen at the largest usable flame on propane, and the chart’s own footnote says natural gas consumption runs approximately 2.5 times the propane volume. Those are full-flame figures, not a floor below which the torch will not light, so whether a Phantom gives its full flame on a house line is a question to settle with GTT and your gas installer, and a booster is the likely answer for the full flame. Our natural gas conversion guide covers the plumbing side of that decision.

Community reports (Lampwork Etc.) point the same way: household 1/4 to 1/2 psi runs smaller torches fine, but some users with large GTT torches find the absolute top end is not there on unboosted house gas. G-TEC’s own TB-60 booster page names “an individual with a Nortel Major, GTT Phantom or similar torch” as a fit. So the fair summary is: both torches point toward a booster or bottled propane for their full flame. The CC’s manual says so outright; for the Phantom, GTT’s chart and a booster maker’s own sizing page agree.

On the oxygen side, the CC is the hungrier torch at full song, around 26 LPM of usable flame against the Phantom’s roughly 16.5 LPM. Either figure is beyond a single small concentrator at maximum; see how many LPM does my torch need, the GTT Phantom oxygen requirements guide and the concentrators vs tanks comparison for sizing a supply honestly.

Editor’s note: the CC manual also lists a “Maximum Cubic Foot per Hour” figure of 180 CFH oxygen (about 85 LPM) on natural gas. That number is a capacity ceiling for the burner’s plumbing, not a consumption or working-flame figure. Do not size an oxygen supply from it.

Flame character and working feel

The CC’s two-flame design is its signature: a hot, detailed premix centerfire for pinpoint work inside a bushy, soaking surface-mix outer fire for mass heating. That combination is why the design survived from 1939 scientific glass through the 1980s and 90s artistic glass movement, when Carlisle added the CC Plus and the #3 centerfire tip. The trade-offs are equally traditional: the CC is robust but loud, and it is prone to a backfire “pop” if shut down out of sequence, so the manual’s shutdown order matters.

The Phantom’s Triple Mix flame is the modern alternative: two surface-mix stages (the Lynx center and the outer ring) that GTT says span soft and bushy to hard and driving, with wide chemistry control, rather than a premixed pilot inside a surface-mix outer. In a long-running Lampwork Etc. “GTT or Carlisle?” thread, posters describe GTT’s large torches (the Mirage in that discussion) as more efficient on gas and oxygen than a CC and faster at putting heat into the core of the glass, while acknowledging trade-offs and calling both great torches. Treat that as community opinion, not measured fact, but it matches the pattern: the CC is the proven workhorse with a big soaking fire, the Phantom the efficiency-minded design that does more with a leaner supply.

Fuels, variants, and near neighbors

Both torches in our catalog run propane or natural gas. Carlisle’s site notes the CC platform can be configured for hydrogen, but that is the dedicated CC-H variant with a non-piloted tip; the standard CC is not a hydrogen torch, and hydrogen work means ordering the CC-H specifically.

Do not confuse the CC with the Carlisle Mini CC. The Mini CC is a different, smaller model whose manual allows 0.25 to 3 psi on natural gas, so house pressure is fine there (propane wants 2 to 3 psi). The full-size CC’s 5 psi requirement is the booster-territory number; collapsing the two models into one “Carlisle pressure” claim is a common and expensive mistake. If you are actually shopping the entry tier, see Nortel Minor vs Carlisle Mini CC instead.

Within each family there are steps in both directions: Carlisle’s CC Plus extends the CC platform upward, and GTT’s Sidewinder is a 22-jet, two-stage sibling of the Phantom at $1,125 list for the Lynx-center bench version.

Verdict

Buy the Carlisle CC if you value the two-flame cannon-burner working style, a hot premixed center fire inside a bushy surface-mix outer, with eighty-plus years of production history behind it, and your oxygen delivery is comfortable around 26 LPM at full flame. Buy the Phantom if you want a serious two-stage Triple Mix torch with wide chemistry control, a leaner oxygen appetite at its top end (about 16.5 LPM), and a price about $600 lower. Either way, budget for the gas side: the CC’s manual calls for 5 psi of natural gas and GTT’s chart lists 10 psi of propane for the Phantom’s largest usable flame, so neither torch’s full flame is planned around a bare house line. For a home studio stepping up from a mid-size torch, the difference that shapes the build is oxygen, and there the Phantom’s smaller ceiling is the easier supply to put together.

Related guides

• GTT Triple Mix technology explained
• Natural gas conversion guide
• How many LPM does my torch need?
• Oxygen concentrator vs tanks for lampworking
• Nortel Minor vs Carlisle Mini CC

Sources

• Carlisle Machine Works, “CC Bench Burner”: http://carlislemachine.com/as_benchburners/cc.php
• Carlisle Machine Works, “About” (company and CC history): http://carlislemachine.com/about.php
• Carlisle Machine Works, “CC Burner Series Instruction Sheet” (pressures, capacity ceiling, centerfire tips): http://carlislemachine.com/webcatalog/CC_Burner_Series_Instruction_Sheet.pdf
• Glass Torch Technologies, “Flow Rate Chart” (fuel and oxygen psi and flow at the largest usable flame, tested on propane): https://www.glasstorchtech.com/_files/ugd/0f433e_940fa1536d544665a118116eb9542e62.pdf
• Glass Torch Technologies, “Phantom”: https://www.glasstorchtech.com/phantom
• Glass Torch Technologies, “Triple Mix Torches”: https://www.glasstorchtech.com/triple-mix-torches
• G-TEC, “Torch Boosters” (booster pressures and sizing): https://www.gas-tec.com/torch-boosters
• InspectApedia, “Gas Pressures” (residential WC figures): https://inspectapedia.com/plumbing/Gas_Pressures.php
• Lampwork Etc., “GTT or Carlisle?” (community comparison): http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-25754.html