I've been working on a bronze hummingbird.  I will tig weld the wings on but have never welded bronze.  What setting for the amps, I was thinking around 60 to 100, and on DC power.  Move quick, slow, pour on the heat from the beginning or build slow or keep the power low?  The wings are 1/8" thick to 1/16".  Not much welding area to attach to the body.  I was thinking it would be almost like a tac weld.  Any suggestions?    

Take some scrap and practice this manuver before  you go for the gold.....Bronze is tricky and will colapse from the heat if you're not carefull. For small stuff; do a little , then get out, do a little, get out (let it cool in between short sorties)and keep the amps as low as you can...hope that helps...

does your welder have a pulse setting if so i would try that on some test metal. It worked for me when i welded a copper cup out of mig nozzles worked great but the only challenge was getting the heat right.. not sure if this helped

Greetings Dave,

 

All bronze welding is conditional...  For something like that I would consider color ..   Filler rods are normally not the same color as the base metal..   My take on what you have described is...   Drill a small hole through the wings and the base of the bird to position .  Take some scrap and form a filler pin to hold the wings and the bird base..  Pre heat the mass and basically do a plug weld.  Dress the weld when finished..  A tack weld under the wings is just that a tack . You would remove most of the tack to dress..

 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

Use a piece of your scrap(cut thin strip) as your filler rod!

 

Ian

Thanks everyone.  I will try some practice tomorrow.  I do have some silicone bronze rod.  I do have a pulse setting on my tig welder.  Any suggestions on DC or AC.  I've read that some use DC and others AC.  Thanks

It is 100 degree + here and the shop has a metal roof.  I couldn't see turning on the forge and heating the shop up even more, so the practice will have to wait a few days.  I will send pics when I'm done.  

What kind of bronze is it? silicon and naval weld beautifully, though naval is a little hard to get the weldiment to color match the parent material. architectural bronze tends to be all over the map as its a bit of a catch all classification, phosphorus bronze is just god awful, a bit like tig welding galvinized steel. It brazes alright though. If'n you forged this hummingbird I would say you won't have any problem welding it nicely. As for settings I'd say dc all the way,I've never come across anyone who welds bronze with ac if they have the option not to. On to amperage; do you have a foot controller or a torch controller? for foot control I tend to leave my welder at 220 so it can punch it if I need to but for most thin-ish bronze I'd guess I hover between 90 and 190. bronze is very conductive, if you've only tigged steel or stainless you will be very surprised how much amperage you'll need. I don't like torch controllers at all, as I tend to under and over shoot the amperage when im going from one puddle to the next. as a result I would curtail my available amperage so as not to be taking three steps back. Hope this helps,Take care, Matt

Thanks Matt.  I do have a foot pedal.  I will try tomorrow but will probably start at the low amp settings.  Do you move forward like welding mild steel. I want to blend in the wings to the body and I plan on doing some light hammering to give it some texture after welding.  I imagine this would be acceptable.  Oh yes, I have silicone bronze.   

Dave can you post a photo of what you intend to weld ? As I do hate to weld blind <Grins>

 

Sam

Sam:  I can't find my camera and I don't own a phone with a camera.  But, I will try to locate it and post them asap.