Short answer: The Red Max (about $712 street) and the Bethlehem STACKS (about $874 street) are both two-stage surface-mix bench burners aimed at the same mid-price gap, but they answer different questions. The Red Max is the wide, hot, 45 jet workhorse that soft-glass and production bead makers reach for; the STACKS is a quiet, modular, oxygen-sipping burner that Bethlehem rates at roughly 10 LPM of oxygen at a maximum usable flame and explicitly recommends for oxygen concentrators. If your oxygen supply is a concentrator and your work is small to medium mixed glass, the STACKS is the easier system to feed. If you want maximum wide heat for soft glass at the lower price, the Red Max is the classic answer. One honest caveat runs through this whole comparison: the two makers publish different kinds of numbers, so a clean like-for-like spec table is not fully possible, and we say so below rather than papering over it.
Two mid-price two-stage torches, two different philosophies
On paper these torches look like siblings. Both are bench burners. Both run two stages: a small center fire for detail work and a bigger outer fire for bulk heat. Both are classified surface mix. Both burn propane or natural gas with oxygen. Both sit in the price zone between entry burners and the big flagship torches.
In practice they come from different design cultures. Nortel builds the Red Max as a wide-fire platform: one big round surface-mix face with an interchangeable top fire above it, and the option to bolt a second burner on top. Bethlehem builds the STACKS as a modular low-pressure system: two independent stainless burners you can buy in stages, tuned for soft, quiet, low-velocity flames and small oxygen supplies. Which philosophy fits you depends far more on your oxygen supply and the scale of your work than on any single spec line.
Nortel Red Max: the wide hot workhorse
The Red Max is a round-face surface-mix bench burner with 45 jets arranged as a center port ringed by two more rows across one face; the whole torch is surface mix. Nortel describes the flame range as needle thin up to about 1.25 inches wide, which is the core of its appeal: one torch covers fine stringer detail and broad gathers of soft glass without changing hardware. That wide, hot footprint is why the Red Max shows up so often in production bead studios.
It is also a platform. The top mount accepts a second burner: a Nortel Minor, a Mega Minor, or a premix top with N11 (11 hole) and N3 tips. That lets a Minor owner carry their familiar top fire onto a bigger base, which is a genuinely nice upgrade path. If you are weighing the Red Max against the Minor itself, we cover that pairing in Nortel Red Max vs Minor.
On supply, Nortel publishes pressure ranges rather than flow figures: 0.5 to 5 psi on fuel (propane or natural gas) and 5 to 12 psi on oxygen, with 3/8 inch or 5/16 inch hose. What Nortel does not publish, and what our catalog therefore does not carry, is an oxygen flow figure in liters per minute. We will not invent one. Qualitatively, a 45 jet two-stage face running wide open is a bigger flame than most single small concentrators are happy feeding, and community reports bear that out in both directions: a Lampwork Etc. thread from 2010 reviews running a Red Max on an EX-15/M-15 oxygen concentrator, which tells you people do run this torch on concentrator setups, framed as community experience rather than a measured spec.
Street price is about $712, which undercuts the STACKS by a meaningful margin.
Bethlehem STACKS: the oxygen-sipping modular option
Bethlehem released the STACKS in summer 2017 after about two years of development, positioning it as the company’s first mid-range bench burner, built to fill the gap between the entry Alpha and the flagship Bravo. If you are mapping the whole Bethlehem line, see Bethlehem Alpha vs Bravo vs Champion.
The modularity is the headline. The STACKS is sold as two independent stainless burners you can buy in stages: STACKS I, a top mount with 6 sharp-flame jets on a 0.375 inch face, and STACKS II, a bottom mount with 18 jets and 48 oxygen ports on a 1 inch face. Each mount has its own B-fitting gas and oxygen connections and modular stainless needle valves, and a swivel base is included; the hardware package also covers rack-and-pinion adjustment. Our catalog does not carry a single whole-torch jet count for the STACKS, and we will not manufacture one by adding the mounts together; the per-mount figures above are the manufacturer’s own descriptions.
Oxygen appetite is where the STACKS earns its reputation. Our catalog carries about 10 LPM of oxygen as the recommended maximum-usable-flame figure. Bethlehem’s own published numbers vary by mount and by document: the product page lists full-flame consumption of roughly 2 LPM gas and 10 LPM oxygen for STACKS I and roughly 4 LPM gas and 20 LPM oxygen for STACKS II, while the technical-information page lists base figures of 2 to 5 psi gas at 3 LPM and 8 to 20 psi oxygen at 10 LPM, plus hourly figures of 180 LPH for STACKS I and 900 LPH for STACKS II. Those documents do not perfectly reconcile with each other, which is normal for manufacturer literature and worth knowing before you size a supply.
Editor’s note: oxygen and fuel figures for the STACKS vary between Bethlehem’s own product page and technical-information page, and by which mount is running. We present the catalog’s 10 LPM maximum-usable-flame figure as the planning number; treat the per-mount and LPH figures as the manufacturer’s ranges, and treat the manufacturer’s current documentation as the final word.
Bethlehem states that both mounts work well with oxygen concentrators and excel on low-pressure systems. The company’s own framing of its house flame character is that surface-mixed low-velocity flames are soft, quiet, soaking flames; that low pressure aids complete combustion and saves fuel; and that the stainless bodies run cool without water cooling. Those are marketing claims, but the quiet low-velocity character is a consistent theme in how Bethlehem torches get described, and it matters if you share studio space; see quietest torches for shared studios.
Street price is about $874, though the staged two-burner purchase can spread that out.
Side by side: what the published specs actually let us compare
Here is the honest version of the comparison table. Where a maker does not publish a number, the cell says so.
| Spec | Nortel Red Max | Bethlehem STACKS |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Two-stage surface mix (interchangeable top fire) | Two-stage surface mix, two independent mounts |
| Jets | 45 | Not in our catalog as a single figure; 6 jets (STACKS I) and 18 jets plus 48 oxygen ports (STACKS II) per the maker |
| Fuel | Propane or natural gas | Propane or natural gas |
| Fuel pressure (maker) | 0.5 to 5 psi | 2 to 5 psi (technical page) |
| Oxygen pressure (maker) | 5 to 12 psi | 8 to 20 psi (technical page) |
| Oxygen flow (maker) | Not published; no sourced LPM figure | About 10 LPM at max usable flame (catalog); per-mount figures vary, see above |
| Concentrator use | Community-reported, not maker-specified | Maker states it works with oxygen concentrators |
| Hardware | Top mount accepts Minor, Mega Minor, or premix top | Swivel base included, rack-and-pinion adjustment, B-fittings per mount |
| Street price | About $712 | About $874 |
Read that oxygen row carefully, because it is the crux of this article. Bethlehem publishes flow figures in LPM; Nortel publishes only pressure ranges. That is not a gap in our research, it is a difference in what the two companies choose to state, and it means the single number buyers most want to compare, oxygen appetite, cannot be compared like for like from published specs alone.
Oxygen supply: concentrators, tanks, and what each torch asks for
If you run tanks, either torch is straightforward to feed and the decision moves to flame character and price. If you run a concentrator, the asymmetry above becomes practical. The STACKS carries a maker-stated concentrator endorsement and a roughly 10 LPM planning figure, which puts a strong single concentrator in play. The Red Max has no published flow figure, so sizing a concentrator for it means leaning on qualitative appetite (a wide 45 jet two-stage face) and community experience like the Lampwork Etc. concentrator thread. Our sizing guide, how many LPM does my torch need, covers how to reason about torches without published flow figures, and oxygen concentrator vs tanks covers the supply decision itself.
One safety note while we are on supply: Bethlehem’s operating instructions say not to exceed 25 psi on any feed line. As always, the manufacturer’s current manual takes precedence over anything in this article; set pressures from the maker’s documentation for your specific torch and regulators.
Which one fits your work
Choose the Red Max if your work is soft glass or production beads and you want the widest, hottest mid-price footprint per dollar. The 45 jet face, the needle-to-1.25-inch flame range, and the top-mount upgrade path make it a natural landing spot for Minor graduates, and it costs about $160 less.
Choose the STACKS if your oxygen supply is the constraint or your studio needs to stay quiet. The roughly 10 LPM planning figure, the maker’s concentrator endorsement, the staged two-burner purchase, and the soft low-velocity Bethlehem flame character all point at small-to-medium mixed work on modest supply. You pay more, and you accept that Bethlehem’s own numbers vary by mount and document.
Either way, go in knowing the spec bases differ. Anyone who hands you a tidy table with an oxygen LPM figure for the Red Max sitting next to the STACKS number has invented at least one of those numbers. The published record supports the comparison above and no more.
Related guides
- Nortel Red Max vs Minor
- Bethlehem Alpha vs Bravo vs Champion
- How many LPM does my torch need?
- Oxygen concentrator vs tanks for lampworking
- Quietest torches for shared studios
Sources
- Nortel Manufacturing, “Red Max”: https://www.nortelglass.com/red-max/
- Bethlehem Burners, “STACKS”: https://www.bethlehemburners.com/torches/stacks/
- Bethlehem Burners, “Bethlehem Burners STACKS Bench Burner” (release announcement): https://www.bethlehemburners.com/news/bethlehem-burners-stacks-bench-burner/
- Bethlehem Burners, “Technical Information”: https://www.bethlehemburners.com/resources/technical-information/
- Bethlehem Burners, “Why Choose Bethlehem”: https://www.bethlehemburners.com/why-choose/
- Lampwork Etc., EX-15/M-15 oxygen concentrator on a Red Max (community thread): http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163638