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Lampworking Torch Kit: What Ships and What You Still Need

What a lampworking or glass blowing torch kit includes, maker by maker, and the oxygen, fuel, regulators, hoses and safety gear you still buy separately.

By Joe Blanchard, sixteen years on the distribution side of the glass industry · Updated

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Short answer: there is no standard lampworking torch kit. What a maker ships with the torch ranges from a base, fittings, filters, instructions and cleaning wires (the GTT Cricket) to a cleaning needle and your choice of fitting (the Nortel Minor) to a burner sold without a tip at all (the National 6B). Only one maker kit we have read adds supply parts: National’s 3BAK air/gas kit, with a fuel regulator, a hose set and check valves. None includes an oxygen supply, fuel, eyewear or a kiln, and those are most of the cost of a first bench. So whether you searched for a glass blowing torch kit for beginners or a glass bead torch kit, read the parts list, not the word “kit”, and price the rest of the system before you choose the torch.

The torch is still the purchase to get right. Most flameworkers buy one and work it for years, and there is no way to know how a torch behaves until you have run it, which is why a bundle that makes the torch look like one line among twenty deserves a slower read than it usually gets.

What people mean by “torch kit”

Three different things get sold under the same word:

  • The maker’s own box. What ships with the torch from the manufacturer: usually a base or mount, fittings, instructions and a cleaning tool. This is the only version we document below, because it is the only one a maker stands behind.
  • A maker configuration. Some makers sell a version of a torch with parts attached, such as a hand torch with its hose and a mounting block, or a burner supplied with long hoses. These are still the maker’s product, so they are covered here too.
  • A bundle assembled by a seller. Torch plus regulators, hose, eyewear or tools, put together by whoever is selling it. Contents vary from listing to listing, so the useful question is which exact parts are in it and which are missing, using the lists below as the baseline.

What each maker lists with the torch

The lists come from each maker’s own model pages, store listings, product sheets and catalogs. Where a maker’s pages did not say what ships, we say that rather than guess.

Glass Torch Technologies (GTT)

GTT’s model pages and store listings set out box contents model by model:

  • Cricket: base, barb fittings, filters, instructions and cleaning wires. Marvers, custom colors and hose assemblies are options.
  • Bobcat: base, male B fittings, filters and instructions. The model page says a cleaning kit and the store says cleaning wires. Marvers and hose assemblies are options.
  • Lynx and Cheetah bench torches: base, hoses, screened adapters, instructions and a cleaning kit. A marver, an L marver and hose assemblies are sold separately.
  • Lynx and Cheetah hand torches: 4 feet of 1/8 inch custom hose and an aluminum mounting block, with a hook as an option. Our GTT hand torches guide covers that line.
  • Phantom and Mirage: hoses, screened adapters, base, instructions and a cleaning kit, with a DVD added on the store listings. Pedal and hose assemblies are options.

None of the GTT pages read for this guide lists a flashback arrestor in the box. Note that GTT names “hoses” in some boxes and sells “hose assemblies” separately; the pages give no lengths, so ask GTT whether what ships will reach your regulators.

Nortel

Nortel’s store asks you to choose barb or B fittings when you order the Minor, and the Minor listing names a cleaning needle as included. The Mega Minor product sheet makes B fittings standard with hose barbs as the option. Neither the Minor listing nor the Mega Minor sheet mentions hoses or a stand. On the hand torches, the Unitorch listings describe the stainless manifold, nozzle tubes and the six, nine or twelve stainless tips that give each version its name.

The Twin Fuel Handtorch is the one to read twice: Nortel’s store listing says it is supplied with a 2RC brass tip, while the model page says tips are not included. Both are Nortel’s own words, so confirm with Nortel which package you are ordering. Nortel sells additional tips separately. A full read of Nortel’s torch categories on 2026-10-06 found no separate torch kit listed.

National Torch

National’s pages are specific about two models. The 4B comes with a 1/4 inch NPT by 7 inch elbow and 9/16-18 B-size threaded hose connections, with 1/4 inch hose-barb adapters standard, and National names N-4, N-6A and P-Series tips for propane or natural gas with air. The 6B bench torch is sold without tips, so the tip for your fuel is a separate line in the budget.

National’s 2024 price list prices the base 3A-B and 3B-B torches separately from its kits, and it spells out what each kit holds:

  • 3A-B3 and 3B-B3: the torch, a 4 1/2 inch elbow, and N-1 and N-2 tips. The 3B-B33 adds an N-0 tip, the 3A-B3-4 adds an OX-4 tip, and the 3A-BOX carries OX-1, OX-3 and OX-5 tips instead of the N series.
  • 4BT: the 4B torch with an N-4 tip.
  • 3BAK: an air/gas kit built around a 3B-B3 torch with N-2 and N-3 tips, a CT-12-4BB hose kit (a 12 foot Grade T twin hose), a 2500.510 fuel regulator and a CV61P regulator-style check valve set. It is the only maker kit in this guide that includes a regulator, and it is set up for compressed air, so an oxygen regulator and supply are still yours to buy if you run oxygen.

National’s operating instructions for the 3A-B and 3B-B include tip selector charts by fuel, and its tips description table lists every tip by orifice, thread and gas, so the tip you add later can be matched to the torch.

Carlisle

Carlisle’s GR page says three 72 inch hoses are supplied, and the Lucio Grande ships on the Black Widow base. For the CC family, the CC Burner Series instruction sheet describes the #5 center fire tip as the standard size and the #3 as a smaller tip intended for propane, where it keeps the flame stable, or for a sharper pinpoint on natural gas. It also lists a stainless head and the Optimizer as options. Carlisle’s bulletin for the premix Universal Hand Torch says it is available with either a 1/4 inch or a 3/8 inch nozzle, which are interchangeable, with the #74 carburetor for the 1/4 inch nozzle and the #34 for the 3/8 inch. For the rest of the line, the Carlisle pages we have do not list box contents.

Herbert Arnold

Arnold’s burner catalog is precise about its premix hand torches. The Mini Hand Torch ships with two jets, 0.5 and 0.8 mm bore (0.3 and 0.5 mm on the hydrogen version); further jets, a two-jet distributor and a stand are sold separately. The Premix Hand Torch ships with three jets at 0.8, 1.0 and 1.3 mm, with distributors and a stand sold separately. Each is built for one fuel (propane, natural gas or hydrogen versions), so the version you order is part of what is in the box.

Bethlehem

Bethlehem’s product pages list the same short box for most of its burners: the Champion page says it “comes with Lifetime Factory Warranty, Instructions, Bethlehem Burners Cleaning Kit, and Swivel Base with Scroll Pedestal”, and the Bravo, Grand and Sharp Flame pages list the same items. The Star and Alpha pages list the cleaning kit and a swivel base without the scroll pedestal. On the STACKS pages the complete torch includes a swivel base, while the single-burner versions list the cleaning kit as sold separately. None of these lists includes hoses.

What you buy separately, whichever torch you choose

Every item below sits outside the maker box lists above, apart from the regulator, hose and check valves in National’s 3BAK kit:

  • Oxygen. A concentrator or tanks, sized to the torch. Start with oxygen concentrator vs tanks and how many LPM does my torch need.
  • Fuel and two regulators. Propane or natural gas, plus a regulator rated for each gas. The propane vs natural gas guide covers the fuel choice.
  • Hose runs and adapters. Grade T hose and the fittings that match your torch and supply, which the fittings, hoses and connectors guide explains. A concentrator usually needs an adapter on its line.
  • Flashback protection. The protection your torch and gas supply call for, which differs by maker and by mix type; see flashback arrestors explained.
  • A stand for a hand torch. Arnold sells its hand torch stands separately, and none of the other hand torch pages we have read lists one in the box.
  • Eyewear matched to your glass, ventilation, an annealing kiln, hand tools and glass. The beginner setup cost guide prices each of these line by line, and the lampworking torch setup guide puts them together in order.

Premix hand torches: the kit is the tips

On a premix hand torch the tip or jet sets the flame, so the box contents decide what the torch can do on day one. National’s torches take interchangeable tips, the Unitorch versions are named for their tip count, the Twin Fuel accepts multi-orifice, ribbon and National-style tips, and Arnold ships a fixed set of jet bores with more sold separately. When you compare two premix hand torches, compare the tips that come with them as carefully as the bodies, and expect to add tips as the work grows. Our surface mix vs premix guide explains why premix torches work this way.

Reading a kit listing before you buy

Whoever is selling it, these questions turn “kit” into a parts list:

  1. Which exact model and configuration? Bench or hand, the fuel version where the maker builds one per fuel, and the center fire or top where there is a choice.
  2. Which fittings? Barb or B-size, and whether they match the regulators you will buy.
  3. Which hoses, and how long? Short torch hoses and full runs to the supply are different things.
  4. Which tips or jets? On a premix torch, this is the flame.
  5. Are the maker’s instructions included? They set the pressures for that model, and they take precedence over any general guide, ours included.
  6. What is missing? Check the bundle against the list in the previous section.

If you are still choosing the torch itself, the best beginner glass torch guide compares first bench torches, and the Hot Head guide covers the canister torch that sits below all of these, with no oxygen supply at all.

Editor’s note: box contents come from the makers’ own model pages, store listings, product sheets and catalogs, read between July and October 2026 (GTT and Nortel on 2026-10-06; National’s price list, Bethlehem’s product pages and Carlisle’s Universal bulletin on 2026-10-31, through a search of each maker’s own site), and makers change what ships without notice. Where two of a maker’s own pages disagree, we report both. Confirm the current contents with the maker before you buy.

Sources

About the author

Written and edited by Joe Blanchard, who spent 2007 to 2023 on the distribution side of the glass industry in Asheville, North Carolina. GlassTorches.com is his independent, manufacturer-first buyer's guide. More about the editor.

How this guide was sourced: figures come from the manufacturer's own pages and manuals where we have them and are labelled as estimates where they are ours; the catalog on this site is the source of truth, and where sources disagree the guide says so. Confirm the current spec with the maker before you buy. How we work.