This part of IEC 60974 specifies safety and construction requirements for torches for arc welding and allied processes. This part of IEC 60974 is applicable to manual, mechanically guided, air-cooled, liquid-cooled, motorized, spool-on and fume extraction torches.

In this part of IEC 60974, a torch consists of the torch body, the cable-hose assembly and other components.

This part of IEC 60974 is also applicable to a cable-hose assembly connected between a power source and ancillary equipment.

This part of IEC 60974 is not applicable to electrode holders for manual metal arc welding or air-arc cutting/gouging.

NOTE 1 Typical allied processes are electric arc cutting and arc spraying.

NOTE 2 Other components are listed in Table A.1.

NOTE 3 In this part of IEC 60974, the terms "torch" and "gun" are interchangeable. For convenience "torch" has been used in the following text.