Funny thing about t-burners and Oxy/Acetylene brazing. If you are trying to braze the mig tip in to the "T" because you drilled the hole to big you can cut the copper pipe off with very little effort. So I was left with a copper pipe and no more mig tips. I attached a small shop vac and made a forced air burner out of it. I got to tell you it get HOT. I was able to make beer bottle glass melt in t goo and last night I wanted to see what it would do to lava briquettes like you use in a gas grill. They started melting together after about 10 min.

This sucker is hot!  

That sounds like around 2,000f+. Of course that's just my unscientific guesstimate. <grin>

 

Next time silver solder the mig tip. Copper melts at close to the same temp as brass and closer to bronze. Just a moment too long or close and it's a dead jet.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Yup Frosty you sure are right about that!!!!. My daughter asked if it was petrified dog droppings. The  briquettes were glowing with the same incandescence of steel that is sparking right before it melts. 

Copper melts at 1984F, and brass melts at different temperatures depending on how it's alloyed. Proprietary brazing rod is alloyed to melt in the area of 1600F to make it relatively easy to use.

Frank, I agree 100%. thing is I was trying to get the back iron "t" fitting up to brazing temp and I should have taken the mig tip out before trying that. At this time I have a wide open 3/16 or 1/4" copper tube (think ice maker hook up) that is being feed at 1 or 2 PSI from the regulator and a small shop vac to get up to hot enough to make the lava get to almost flow temp. I wonder if the added speed of a higher pressure and lower volume propane jet is better than a very low pressure lower speed flow like I have now. I am going to give it another shot in the next day or so. 

 

On the topic of copper, brass and bronze I saw a bronze pour demo last week and it was a bit like setting up for a fireworks show. Lots of fuzting over things that need to be done and a short time that is the pour and cooling the casting. The guy doing the demo was using what looked like 8 or so strand or 6-8 gauge wire, like for a ground or a main trunk and lead free solder. Came out really neat looking. The melt was done in a round furnace (think the guy from back yard metal casting) and a Ron Reil SA burner.

I think I was wrong about these. These are ceramic briquettes, not lava, still cool looking.

What size mig tip do you need? I've got extras in both .035 and .045. They have different thread pitches from each other, but I'd be glad to throw a couple of each in an envelope if you'd like. Just PM me if you're interested.

Broomhead, 

 

I sent you a PM and thank you. Let me know next time you come though Madison Co and I can fix you up with some black walnut or knife handles.