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brazing vs. welding, gas that is.


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Good afternoon everyone, 

 

I have been using brazing rods with sheet steel for a short while with what I would call a good outcome. I was reading something about welding using a bronze welding rod. What I was wondering is if using an O/A torch (Much hotter than any MAPP air torch) with a bronze filler rod is considered welding or brazing.

Thank you much.  

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Assuming your base material is steel, that would be brazing. If you had bronze as your base material it's possible you could weld. Welding is when the base material's fuse and combine with the filler. That doesn't happen with dissimilar metals like steel and bronze.

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DSW,

 

That is what I thought but I wanted to be sure. I have heard that with a bronze braze you could (some of the time) get a stronger joint than a weld. I think this was in the context low carbon steel to high carbon steel or even cast iron. Now I will tell you I have no plans to try and weld up some 1018 to cast iron but I was thinking about a joint that I saw one person on IFI do where they drilled a hole in the high carbon steel die and inserted the tool handle (spring fuller tool) in to the hole. The person who did this used a 220 stick welder to spot weld in in. Since I have no 220 stick welder but do have an O/A kit I thought this might work. 

 

thanks

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DSW,

 

That is what I thought but I wanted to be sure. I have heard that with a bronze braze you could (some of the time) get a stronger joint than a weld. I think this was in the context low carbon steel to high carbon steel or even cast iron. Now I will tell you I have no plans to try and weld up some 1018 to cast iron but I was thinking about a joint that I saw one person on IFI do where they drilled a hole in the high carbon steel die and inserted the tool handle (spring fuller tool) in to the hole. The person who did this used a 220 stick welder to spot weld in in. Since I have no 220 stick welder but do have an O/A kit I thought this might work. 

 

thanks

If you have an OA set up, gas weld that particular joint with steel filler rod. Gas welding is almost as easy as brazing or bronze welding. 

 

Look at it this way. A-36 has minimum tensile of 36,000. 

Bronze welding rod (silicon bronze) has a tensile strength of 50,000. 

 

Why would you gas weld instead then? For one thing, you don't need flux and are not creating many poisonous fumes. For another you can buy steel filler wire far cheaper then brass or bronze AND  you may well be welding metals with a tensile strength far in excess of 50,000 lbs. Buy a 70,000 series copper coated tig wire such as D-2 and you will not have to worry. 

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Ok I double checked myself. It seems we are both "right". You are correct that there is both brazing and braze ( bronze) welding. However braze welding  does not melt the base materials as "real" welding does. It's a similar process to brazing in that the base metal does not melt.

 

As far as the OP's question, brazing should be fine for that application. A good well fitting socket joint is ideal for brazing. Biggest issue most times with brazing would be heat tolerance. I can't see you getting the swage to the red hot point, unless you actually forged the shape in the dies like you do with bottom tools.

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Ok I double checked myself. It seems we are both "right". You are correct that there is both brazing and braze ( bronze) welding. However braze welding  does not melt the base materials as "real" welding does. It's a similar process to brazing in that the base metal does not melt.

 

As far as the OP's question, brazing should be fine for that application. A good well fitting socket joint is ideal for brazing. Biggest issue most times with brazing would be heat tolerance. I can't see you getting the swage to the red hot point, unless you actually forged the shape in the dies like you do with bottom tools.

Bronze welding does not melt the base metal as in fusion welding. 

 

This is a very sound explanation; http://www.esabna.com/euweb/oxy_handbook/589oxy14_1.htm

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Ok I double checked myself. It seems we are both "right". You are correct that there is both brazing and braze ( bronze) welding. However braze welding  does not melt the base materials as "real" welding does. It's a similar process to brazing in that the base metal does not melt.

 

As far as the OP's question, brazing should be fine for that application. A good well fitting socket joint is ideal for brazing. Biggest issue most times with brazing would be heat tolerance. I can't see you getting the swage to the red hot point, unless you actually forged the shape in the dies like you do with bottom tools.

DSW, I agree that I do not see many tools like that getting red hot. On the other hand that is why I thought brazing would be a poor choice to hold a pattern weld stack together.

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Arftist,

 

I agree, that is a VERY good explanation. I think I might take the high temp melting bronze or such rod and try and "tin" a sample of the socket and rod. I have some brazing flux if need be but the O/A cone should take care of that. If I were to get both "tinned" they might braze weld together even easier. I have some scrap to try this out on.  

 

Thanks

Ernest

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I'm afraid we may be destined to butt heads Arftist. This publication is written by a manufacturer's marketing department making mountains out of molehills, differences without  distinction in an attempt to make their product sound superior. It's been a good 45 years since went to the trade schools. It's straight up text book and quiz stuff: different alloys of brazing rod had different yield strengths. No surprises there so the Esab writeup isn't saying anything new or surprising.

 

Brazing is NOT welding, period. Welding is the fusion of metals whether filler is necessary or not. Bronze welding is in short the fusion of bronze. This was a first day question/lesson in Jr. high metal shop class.

 

Brazing is hard soldering using a copper alloy, be it brass, bronze, copper or another cupric alloy, say a silver solder, though there are soft silver solders. It's soldering whether it's capillary action on tightly fitted pieces or tinning that applies the layer that makes the join. And yes it CAN be stronger than a weld.

 

Things have certainly changed since I went to school and worked in the industry and I will modify my opinion if you can provide industry material saying bronze filler rod can weld iron or steel. Preferably an "educational" institution that is NOT a welding or soldering rod manufacturer.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Frosty,

 

Your "time in service and time in grade" so to speak as a craftsman makes your advice worth hearing. The main thing I was trying to understand is if there is a kind of Brazing/soldering that is done closer to welding heat. I was musing on the way in to work this morning about how well it would work to sprinkle finely ground cast iron in to a joint and then heating that up to temp. I do know that what I am suggesting might be about like inventing the artifical appendix but it was just something to think about.

 

One other think that has been bugging me, if you will allow, is I have a small 110 volt campbell hausfeld arc/stick welder. I am using the 1/16 and 5/64 rods the manual says to use but I have been having a hard time getting an arc or keeping it going. Has anyone ever used a throw-away mulitmeeter to check volts and or amps on a welder?

 

thanks

Ernest

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Thanks for the vote Ernest. It's easy to get sucked in by a good sales pitch and Esab was coming close to outright fraud with that one unless the professional terminology has changed a LOT in the last 15-20 years. It's one thing for say, Lincoln claim THEIR welding products are superior to say Miller, Hobart or whoever. That's to be expected but it's something entirely different for a company to try redefining a process to make their product SOUND better than it is. It's one thing to say OUR brand brazing rod is as strong AS a weld but it's NOT okay to claim it IS a weld. If the base metals aren't fused it isn't a weld.

 

I'm not dissing anybody and hope I didn't sound like it. I've been taken by a good pitch or plausible urban/blacksmith myth and been corrected by folk here. I appreciate it when I get good corrections. I apologize up front in writing if I sounded like I was dissing you Arftist, I wasn't.

 

I don't know of end users who take a meter to their welders unless there's a problem or it's specified by the customer as in tightly inspected jobs. We usually take them to a shop or have a tech test them in the field as part of a service call if we needed equipment  certified. For regular work I just set mine and go with it. If it won't do the job properly I take it to the shop.

 

I have a common outlet 20a.120V, input Hobart 120 Handler wirefeed I use for light duty gmaw and occasional mig. I have a Lincoln Ranger 9 I use for stick or serious generator duty. I've never checked the output of either but the Range got output tested in the shop some years back and I'm thinking the shop damaged it testing, I might have done the damage though, I'll never know. They made it work as it should so I'm not going to complain other than grumble about the bill. What else is new eh?

 

How much time do you have laying stick beads? Did your welder work properly earlier and not now? Is it new rod, has it been properly stored since opening? Some rod degrades in hours after opening, some will hardly run at all if it's wet or has been wet. Is your welder DC only or ACDC reversable? Is it set properly?

 

Some rods or currents are harder to keep an arc with and it just takes practice. Low current DC straight takes a steadier and more precise hand than AC or DC reverse. The higher the voltage/currant the easier it is to maintain an arc. This is the main reason most beginners tend to over amp the welder and undercut their welds.

 

I just need more info to even help you trouble shoot and there are guys here with YEARS more and better experience, heck, I believe there are factory reps and techs that post here, I know there are instructors and certified professional welders. I haven't renewed a cert in decades let alone been a certified instructor.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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This is the first stick welding I have attempted so it may very well be operator error. The sticks were in plasic in the box and in plastic from Amazon. It is an AC only welder, very simple in fact. It has a On-Off-On switch for Hght-Off-Low apms. I will have to give it another go round and see if I can do any better at it.

Ernest

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There's nothing wrong. It's harder to weld with thin rod at low amps, you just need to lay beads till you can maintain the standoff without trying or thinking about it. You might try the welding supply for some 7018 (oh drats, I can't think of the correct designation for the AC version of 7018) Anyway, give that a try it's going to be much more consistent than whatever Amazon sells.

 

Amazon? :blink:  welding rod . . . Uh.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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I'm afraid we may be destined to butt heads Arftist. This publication is written by a manufacturer's marketing department making mountains out of molehills, differences without  distinction in an attempt to make their product sound superior. It's been a good 45 years since went to the trade schools. It's straight up text book and quiz stuff: different alloys of brazing rod had different yield strengths. No surprises there so the Esab writeup isn't saying anything new or surprising.

 

Brazing is NOT welding, period. Welding is the fusion of metals whether filler is necessary or not. Bronze welding is in short the fusion of bronze. This was a first day question/lesson in Jr. high metal shop class.

 

Brazing is hard soldering using a copper alloy, be it brass, bronze, copper or another cupric alloy, say a silver solder, though there are soft silver solders. It's soldering whether it's capillary action on tightly fitted pieces or tinning that applies the layer that makes the join. And yes it CAN be stronger than a weld.

 

Things have certainly changed since I went to school and worked in the industry and I will modify my opinion if you can provide industry material saying bronze filler rod can weld iron or steel. Preferably an "educational" institution that is NOT a welding or soldering rod manufacturer.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

According to the American Welding Society (AWS), brazing occurs when capillary action draws metal into a joint.

 

Bronze welding (now known as Braze welding) does not utilize capillary action. 

 

My guess is that you just haven't had the same experiences I have. 

 

Here is what I can do with brass, bronze and a torch; I can fusion weld stainless steel to bronze bar using silicon bronze filler wire. Yes, the two parent metals melt and fuse together, the silly bronze provides filler. 

 

I can fusion weld cast iron to cast iron using silicon bronze rods. Again, actual fusion, the cast iron melts and mixes with the bronze. I don't use flux for these welds. 

 

I can also put bronze wire in a MIG and fusion weld any metals together other than aluminum, including stainless steel, high carbon steel, high alloy steel, copper, brass and bronze, cast or wrought iron to any of the others listed. 

 

I am pretty sure I am not the only person capable of these things, though I admit, some I learned entirely by accident, but I was taught to weld cast iron with brass and bronze filler by the president of United Welding Process, a Cat authorized engine welding facility, so I do know a tad bit more than the average bear about this topic. 

 

I imagine some of these processes were not well known when you were in trade school, though I did discover the MIG trick 35 years ago. 

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Good afternoon everyone, 

 

I have been using brazing rods with sheet steel for a short while with what I would call a good outcome. I was reading something about welding using a bronze welding rod. What I was wondering is if using an O/A torch (Much hotter than any MAPP air torch) with a bronze filler rod is considered welding or brazing.

Thank you much.  

 

Eseemann,

 

As rule of thumb ,textbook,Military,School,or Trade it is Standard Teaching to say and I

 

Quote: " Brazing is Brass and NOT in any way, shape,  type, or form welding  ...Bronze welding is in short the fusion of bronze."

 

for Welding :

 

Read the first post !

 

What is Welding?

Welding is the fusion of two like or dissimilar metals despite filler metal necessary needed or Not !

 

 

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Ret, Sgt. Robert D. Yates

 

I have to agree with Frosty 100%

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One thing that hasn't been mentioned that can make a real difference on low amp welding is how clean the surface is that you ground to.  I'm sure your cleaning your surfaces well,  but it is worth mentioning.  Sounds like I have a bunch of googling to do on bronzr welding.  

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I gained a new appreciation for the insulating effects of mill scale when I tried to weld with and with out cleaning. I read one place that scale will (somewhat) insulate a work piece and prevent it from coming up to heat in the forge. 

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One other think that has been bugging me, if you will allow, is I have a small 110 volt campbell hausfeld arc/stick welder. I am using the 1/16 and 5/64 rods the manual says to use but I have been having a hard time getting an arc or keeping it going. Has anyone ever used a throw-away mulitmeeter to check volts and or amps on a welder?

 

 

 

Those little 110v stick machines are quite limited. 7014 would be your best bet. 6013 would be a good 2nd choice. 7018 is a great rod, but many times AC only machines can be finiky as to whether they will run them well or not. Some machines may like one brand over another for example. Others may not run any well at all. 7018 is also pretty picky about storage, and most small packs like taht aren't really stored well even when new. If the box has been on the shelf for a while, the rods may not run well at all, even if "brand new".

 

Small rods like that are very "whippy". Some times it can pay to chop the rods in half so you have less flex to deal with. You can still use both pieces, just break the flux away from the end of the 2nd piece. AS mentioned a good clean work area and ground will be essential to getting good contact. Also make sure that you aren't limiting the machines input power. If you read the instructions on most of those small 110v welders, it will say they want to be run on dedicated 20 amp circuits without an extension cord. "Dedicated" means it's the only thing on that circuit, so nothing else is sapping power. Same goes with extension cords. You get voltage drop with light gauge or long cords. All that robs power that machine desperately needs to work well. Do everything you can to put things in your favor.

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I stand corrected and apologize for speaking out of school. Things have certainly changed since I practiced the trade I'm not even remotely current.

 

My bad, no excuse.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Sorry this took so long, had to figure out how to post here again. since the changes. 

 

Jerry, you help more people and know more than I will ever know. 

Thank you for your vast contributions.

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