wrote in message
ups.com...
Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:

And I feel you used the term correctly. I'm far from a weldor, but I
get
the impression that there's a serious difference between silver
soldering
and brazing. Silver solder will follow a heat source, and flows like
water. I'm not convinced that brazing works similarly.

No, this is not a factor of the process name but a result of the
property of the filler alloy used. A eutectic solder will tend to
flow like water and follow the joint assuming things are hot enough.
When the fit is designed for that it is wonderful. In contrast an
alloy can be chosen which has a "plastic" temperature range between its
solidus and liquidus and with practice this can be exploited to fill
gaps. To some extent, if you get the whole thing above that range it
should flow, but this is often hotter than you'd be comfortable or able
to get the workpiece.

I think the confusion stems from traditional brazing alloys ("braze" -
implication of brass or bronze type alloy) being those with plastic
ranges rather than the high flow variety. Wheras a common reason (when
color match is not a factor) of incurring the expense of a silver alloy
is when a lower temperature, higher flow process was desired. Hence
"brazing" tends to be associated with the use of plastic alloys and
"silver soldering" with high flow ones, but they are basically the same
process and there is no clear dividing line.


Thanks!

Harold