It's been many a year since I brazed something, but I had the occasion
to try the other day...it sucked. Using an ox/acet brazing tip and new,
prefluxed rod, clean material, I heated the parent material red hot,
almost to the point of puddling. I kept the secondary material nice and
red as well, and began adding the brass by laying the unmelted tip of
the rod into the inferno and applying heat to the rod so it would melt
and flow out across the hot material.

Did it work...hell no! As the torch melted the rod, it "spattered" and
popped, kinda blowing itself out onto the parent and secondary metal;
looked like a smoked up, ****ty stick weld that didn't penetrate. My
torch was going pretty good, with a brazing tip and the small,
blue/white cone inside the flame. I know brazing looks better than
this, and the brass flows out nice and smooth with no fuss, no muss.
HELP !!!!

Ronnie

"Ronnie" wrote in message
oups.com...
It's been many a year since I brazed something, but I had the occasion
to try the other day...it sucked. Using an ox/acet brazing tip and new,
prefluxed rod, clean material, I heated the parent material red hot,
almost to the point of puddling. I kept the secondary material nice and
red as well, and began adding the brass by laying the unmelted tip of
the rod into the inferno and applying heat to the rod so it would melt
and flow out across the hot material.

Did it work...hell no! As the torch melted the rod, it "spattered" and
popped, kinda blowing itself out onto the parent and secondary metal;
looked like a smoked up, ****ty stick weld that didn't penetrate. My
torch was going pretty good, with a brazing tip and the small,
blue/white cone inside the flame. I know brazing looks better than
this, and the brass flows out nice and smooth with no fuss, no muss.
HELP !!!!

Ronnie


You probably got the steel too hot, from your description. When brazing,
don't heat the rod. And be sure to keep that inner cone off the steel. Any
oxidizing at all will make your brazing a mess.

You'll get more detailed tips from others, I'm sure. Having made all those
mistakes myself, but still being an amateur, I give out only amateur advice
on brazing and welding. g

--
Ed Huntress
(remove "3" from email address for email reply)

"Ronnie" wrote in message
oups.com...
It's been many a year since I brazed something, but I had the occasion
to try the other day...it sucked. Using an ox/acet brazing tip and new,
prefluxed rod, clean material, I heated the parent material red hot,
almost to the point of puddling. I kept the secondary material nice and
red as well, and began adding the brass by laying the unmelted tip of
the rod into the inferno and applying heat to the rod so it would melt
and flow out across the hot material.

Did it work...hell no! As the torch melted the rod, it "spattered" and
popped, kinda blowing itself out onto the parent and secondary metal;
looked like a smoked up, ****ty stick weld that didn't penetrate. My
torch was going pretty good, with a brazing tip and the small,
blue/white cone inside the flame. I know brazing looks better than
this, and the brass flows out nice and smooth with no fuss, no muss.
HELP !!!!

Too hot. Use just enough heat on base material to allow melting rod to flow
into the heat. Just like soldering, except hotter.

In article .com,
says...
Using an ox/acet brazing tip and new,
prefluxed rod, clean material, I heated the parent material red hot,
almost to the point of puddling. I kept the secondary material nice and
red as well, and began adding the brass by laying the unmelted tip of
the rod into the inferno and applying heat to the rod so it would melt
and flow out across the hot material.

Did it work...hell no! As the torch melted the rod, it "spattered" and
popped, kinda blowing itself out onto the parent and secondary metal;
looked like a smoked up, ****ty stick weld that didn't penetrate.

Too much heat, not enough flux.

Get the parent metal hot enough to melt the filler, touch the filler to
the parent metal to melt it.

Fluxed rod is fine, but it's a lot easier to put some flux in the joint
ahead of time, too, so that the surface is ready for the filler to flow.
Plus, if the flux is well matched to your filler, you can tell the
parent metal is hot enough by the way the flux behaves.

(Of course, then there's GasFlux -- an endless supply of flux pre-mixed
with your acetylene, keeps the joint nice and clean even if you do
overheat it.)

There's a link to The Brazing Book from Handy & Harman on my web site,
it's a good intro to brazing, though it deals more with silver fillers
than brass.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html

Find someone to teach you how to braze. It is dirt simple but I
don't think you'll learn nearly as well from reading as you would from
10 minutes of hands-on instruction and demo.

I'm in Minneapolis. If you are nearby, drop me an email, I think
we'd have you making good brazed joints right quick with a visit.

On 21 Dec 2004 21:28:36 -0800, "Ronnie" wrote:

It's been many a year since I brazed something, but I had the occasion
to try the other day...it sucked. Using an ox/acet brazing tip and new,
prefluxed rod, clean material, I heated the parent material red hot,
almost to the point of puddling. I kept the secondary material nice and
red as well, and began adding the brass by laying the unmelted tip of
the rod into the inferno and applying heat to the rod so it would melt
and flow out across the hot material.

Did it work...hell no! As the torch melted the rod, it "spattered" and
popped, kinda blowing itself out onto the parent and secondary metal;
looked like a smoked up, ****ty stick weld that didn't penetrate. My
torch was going pretty good, with a brazing tip and the small,
blue/white cone inside the flame. I know brazing looks better than
this, and the brass flows out nice and smooth with no fuss, no muss.
HELP !!!!

Ronnie

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 06:18:09 -0000, "Leon Heller"
wrote:


When I made a screwdriver on a metalworking course 40 years ago, I used
brass shavings mixed with flux (a blue paste). The molten brass flowed into
the joint between the blade and the handle very nicely.

Leon

Leon


I've heard of silver solder in a paste but not brass. Was this a *home
made* concoction, if so do you recall what was used for the paste flux
(all I know of is the powdered stuff) ?

Forger

In article .com,
"Ronnie" wrote:

It's been many a year since I brazed something, but I had the occasion
to try the other day...it sucked. Using an ox/acet brazing tip and new,
prefluxed rod, clean material, I heated the parent material red hot,
almost to the point of puddling.

Too hot, by far. You also don't mention applying any flux to the joint
(prefluxed rod alone does not do it).

--
Cats, Coffee, Chocolate...vices to live by

Too hot! Read the rest of the posts. I would add that you need to tune
your flame by adding oxygen slowly untill the "feather just
dissapears...thus a "Neutral" flame. If you add too mush oxygen to a pointy
flame it is a "Reducing" flame and will break-down metals and cause brass
separation and steel out-gassing and poping. If the flame is too rich with
Acet., ( big feather) it will contaminate the piece with carbon. ...or
something like that.


"Ronnie" wrote in message
oups.com...
It's been many a year since I brazed something, but I had the occasion
to try the other day...it sucked. Using an ox/acet brazing tip and new,
prefluxed rod, clean material, I heated the parent material red hot,
almost to the point of puddling. I kept the secondary material nice and
red as well, and began adding the brass by laying the unmelted tip of
the rod into the inferno and applying heat to the rod so it would melt
and flow out across the hot material.

Did it work...hell no! As the torch melted the rod, it "spattered" and
popped, kinda blowing itself out onto the parent and secondary metal;
looked like a smoked up, ****ty stick weld that didn't penetrate. My
torch was going pretty good, with a brazing tip and the small,
blue/white cone inside the flame. I know brazing looks better than
this, and the brass flows out nice and smooth with no fuss, no muss.
HELP !!!!

Ronnie

"Forger" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 06:18:09 -0000, "Leon Heller"
wrote:


When I made a screwdriver on a metalworking course 40 years ago, I used
brass shavings mixed with flux (a blue paste). The molten brass flowed
into
the joint between the blade and the handle very nicely.

Leon

Leon


I've heard of silver solder in a paste but not brass. Was this a *home
made* concoction, if so do you recall what was used for the paste flux
(all I know of is the powdered stuff) ?

The flux was the blue paste, I mixed it with the brass shavings.

Leon

In article ,
says...

I've heard of silver solder in a paste but not brass. Was this a *home
made* concoction, if so do you recall what was used for the paste flux
(all I know of is the powdered stuff) ?

I use a blue paste flux with brass, made by GasFlux. It's around $10 for
a 1-lb tub, I get mine from www.henryjames.com.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html

"Tom Gardner" wrote in message
m...
Too hot! Read the rest of the posts. I would add that you need to tune
your flame by adding oxygen slowly untill the "feather just
dissapears...thus a "Neutral" flame. If you add too mush oxygen to a
pointy
flame it is a "Reducing" flame and will break-down metals and cause brass
separation and steel out-gassing and poping. If the flame is too rich
with
Acet., ( big feather) it will contaminate the piece with carbon. ...or
something like that.

Reducing flame is carbon rich. Oxygen rich flame (hot blue/white cone) is
an oxidizing flame. A neutral flame is desirable for brazing.

Harold

That is true on Earth...but, on MY home planet....


"Harold & Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

"Tom Gardner" wrote in message
m...
Too hot! Read the rest of the posts. I would add that you need to tune
your flame by adding oxygen slowly untill the "feather just
dissapears...thus a "Neutral" flame. If you add too mush oxygen to a
pointy
flame it is a "Reducing" flame and will break-down metals and cause brass
separation and steel out-gassing and poping. If the flame is too rich
with
Acet., ( big feather) it will contaminate the piece with carbon. ...or
something like that.

Reducing flame is carbon rich. Oxygen rich flame (hot blue/white cone) is
an oxidizing flame. A neutral flame is desirable for brazing.

Harold

"Tom Gardner" wrote in message
...
That is true on Earth...but, on MY home planet....

G

Harold

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:44:05 -0800, Joshua Putnam
wrote:

In article ,
says...

I've heard of silver solder in a paste but not brass. Was this a *home
made* concoction, if so do you recall what was used for the paste flux
(all I know of is the powdered stuff) ?

I use a blue paste flux with brass, made by GasFlux. It's around $10 for
a 1-lb tub, I get mine from www.henryjames.com.
Furnace brazing is generally done with a paste of bronze (spelter) and
flux. It is "buttered" on the joint, the joint is assembled, and the
part is "baked".