Brazing or torch welding

Old Doug · Apr 13, 2021

Before i bought a mig in the eary 80s we welded sheet metal and exhaust with torch and coat hangers. Coat hangers were very valuable and late at night hard to come by. I can remember looking in the closets trying not to wake some one looking for a filler rod.When my brother started racing he bought wire at the hardware so i could weld the doors shut. Me and a buddy bought and split 59 pounds of coated brazing rods. I thought that would be a life time supply but they were used up 20 years ago.I have forgot alot of stuff so i have been practising.

JPV · Apr 13, 2021

I got pretty good at gas welding and brazing in high school shop class. I wish I still was, I can do it but sure need practice.

Bumpsteer · Apr 14, 2021

Got pretty good at gas welding when I was a young punk...no choice, it was the only way I had to weld thin stock.

Ed

lantraxco · Apr 14, 2021

Still my tool of choice for welding exhaust, 0 or 00 tip...

Old Doug · Apr 14, 2021

I was at a flea arket and there was a guy selling Dillon or cobra torches he made it look simple. I thought about it for several years and bought one. Its ok i havent used it that much it will do alot it will not replace a regular torch altogether. The cutting part of it will do a good job if you can master it i havnt yet.

skyking1 · Apr 14, 2021

brazing is so cool because you can stick two or three different metals together in a composition. It is really nice for anything, but artists use it quite a bit because of that.

John C. · Apr 14, 2021

I have always liked working with the gas torch. I have made countless hydraulic adapter fittings by cutting apart a US type fitting and brazing it on to a metric. I always used it for exhaust work until the squirt guns and small hardwire came out. Last time I was talking to a friend at a small natural gas company, they were still using it once in awhile on natural gas pipe.

nowing75 · Apr 14, 2021

Long time since i gas welded. I have a tig so that handles the thin stuff.

Coaldust · Apr 14, 2021

Old guy checking in. It was a deal back in the day. Even the average kid learned how to gas weld, cut and braze to a certain extent in high school, FFA, VICA or at community college in a variety of trade programs. AWS certification was even a thing.

TIG/MIG, plasma have largely replaced it. But, it comes in handy sometimes. Hard to find someone under 40 that can do it or even realize it’s an option.

It’s becoming less common to even see an oxy/acyt rig in a shop.

Its been pushed out of most curricula, but I covered oxy/acyt safety, set-up, heating and cutting so my grads at least had some clue when they encountered it on the job.

skyking1 · Apr 14, 2021

going back to high school where I first learned it, we had a hapless fellow named Duane who was eventually kicked out of every shop class. He was at the gas welding bench where he struck a fully opened up torch and burned the back of the hand of the fellow next to him. I was scant feet out of range at the time.
Wood shop? Fired more than one missile out of the table saw.
Auto shop? I don't know the particulars there but I have no reason to doubt he earned it.

Coaldust · Apr 14, 2021

Oh’ Duane. I hope he found a safer career later in life, such as the insurance biz or something.

My HS welding class had an A-hole who would heat the metal stool tops up in the booth when his time was up, so the next kid got a surprise.

skyking1 · Apr 14, 2021

TIGs were a rare thing but we had one. I also remember somebody casting a Hurst T-handle shifter handle, having a little sag in it.
He then heated it up with the TIG till it practically went away! Aluminum be funny like that. Solid, still solid, oopsie!

Coaldust · Apr 14, 2021

And we even had required assignments casting metal. What a different world we live in. Can you imagine kids today playing with molten aluminum in class?

No time for that, anyways. Too busy learning how to put condoms on cucumbers. Nope, wait, that’s grade school.

skyking1 · Apr 14, 2021

Coaldust said:
And we even had required assignments casting metal. What a different world we live in. Can you imagine kids today playing with molten aluminum in class?

No time for that, anyways. Too busy learning how to put condoms on cucumbers. Nope, wait, that’s grade school.

you ask anybody what a sprue is.

See how many answers you get.

Old Doug · Apr 14, 2021

I cast this 2 years ago i used a gutted oilfilter for a crucbile. I poured it in a coffee can.

I am always dreaming up a prodject for someday. I would like to build a early motor cycle cast the engine parts and braze the frame together.

Shimmy1 · Apr 14, 2021

John C. said:
I have always liked working with the gas torch. I have made countless hydraulic adapter fittings by cutting apart a US type fitting and brazing it on to a metric.

I have done similar stuff, not to mention having to fix steel lines that have rubbed through. I've wondered what the pressure rating on a brazed together fitting would be? Same as a welded one, slightly less, or substantially less?

Coaldust · Apr 14, 2021

John C. Mentioned brazing hyd fittings. I’ve made my own custom fittings, as well . High pressure excavator stuff, and it held. Not my first choice, but it’s amazing how strong brazing can be.

Coaldust · Apr 14, 2021

I always keep some Nassau Rockmount Brutus G brazing rod around. Good stuff.

John C. · Apr 14, 2021

As I recall brass is only good for about 2,000 PSI. I get away with it because I work in fractions of an inch of surface area. Lots of hydraulic firings are silver soldered onto tubing. I have five or six sticks of coated brass rod left from the old days. Stuff was expensive but someone gave it to me. I looked at buying some but almost blew out a hemorrhoid when they told me the price. I bought a dozen bare sticks and a can of flux for about $8.00 instead.

DirtyHoe · Apr 15, 2021

I still teach gas welding, brazing, and cutting to my high school and college students. The eye and hand coordination you learn from gas welding is a great prerequisite to TIG welding. It's fun to see the look on students' faces when we destructive pull test weld samples. The brazed lap joints hold up just as well as the steel filler rod welded lap joints if done correctly.

When I first started teaching in the '90s the shop had an aluminum foundry. It was fun to ram up a green sand mold. We decommissioned it after a near-disastrous incident. I was heating a good size crucible of molten aluminum. The class had just left and I was on the other side of the shop when a kid threw an AA battery from a distance into the crucible. It exploded and sprayed molten aluminum up to the 14-foot tall ceiling and all over the shop. No one got hurt and to this day it makes me shutter thinking about how kids were in the line of fire just moments before. The burns would have been horrific. He earned a several-day suspension and removal from class. He did it because he wanted to see what would happen.

Brazing or torch welding

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