brazing at home?

Tin will be tricky, unless you mean "tinplate".

Read up on brazing and/or silver soldering. Maybe you mean "soldering." That would be the simplest. Buy a cheap disposable-bottle gas torch.

Keep it all clean. Have fun.

I suggest you first acquaint yourself with the melting points of various materials.

Then you can continue on and define what 'fancy' means.

Jim

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charcoal block and mouth fed blowpipe. very cheap to set up.

it takes a fair bit of skill to use, though.

The more you tell us about what you want to accomplish the better the information.

For example, to join two pieces of copper you may need to stack some insulating fire brick so as to form a corner to concentrate the heat. You can use Sil-Phos brazing rod without any flux, but you won't actually be melting the copper pieces together. Instead you will be adding more metal. This works best for lap joints.

Dan

You left out the alcohol lamp....He'll need that too unless he's been hitting the sauce pretty hard...

I've still got my old alcohol lamp, It's the kind with a multi faceted glass bottle which lets you stand it at an angle for better working access.

I've still got the little Lenk alcohol torch I "moved up to" from my lamp and blowpipe start.

Thanks for the memories...

Jeff

well fancy would be like a propane torch or any regular welding tools that you would normally use

What are you trying to do.

I think you need to purchase an introductory welding texbook and familiarize yourself with some of the basic terms and processes.

You cannot weld without welding equipment. That sounds tautological but it's still true.

What materials are you trying to weld?

Do you want to weld, braze, or solder?

What are you trying to build?

How much money do you want to spend to do it?

Unless you can answer those questions for your own edification you will never accomplish your goal.

Jim

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do you have a gas stove? that will work for silver soldering pieces up to 3 or 4 inches long....

What materials are you trying to weld? anything it just has to be soft with a low melting point and nontoxic(eg:copper or tin)

Do you want to weld, braze, or solder? well thinking back probally not weld because of the dificulty but i could honestly go with any of them but i dont really know the differance between braze and solder

What are you trying to build? nothing untill i learn to do this first

How much money do you want to spend to do it? thats just it i dont want to spend anything i want to do it at home (maybe a little on stuff like a brazing rod or solder but not i dont want to buy any of this torch stuff)

Copper does not have a low melting point. A book about brazing and welding technology would show this. Have you investigated such a source of information?

Oddly enough that distinction would be discussed in some detail in just such a book.

Not building anything. OK.

If you don't want to purchase a flame-wielding torch of any kind then you have limited yourself to solf soldering. Purchase an inexpensive soldering iron from radio shack and start soldering coat-hanger wire, or surplus telephone wire together. That's a good way to learn how to solder.

Jim

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well sorry for all the confusion and hastling but i did like you said and i read up on it all and i've decided that brazing is the most realistic method to accomplish the joint i want.

(though i can't find any standard tempurature for melting points)

does anybody know a way to do this with out a regular welding torch/ or a way to make a makeshift torch?

OK, what are you jointing? What materials, how large? The heating technique you use will be determined by the answers to those questions. You're not hassling anyone, it just looks like you haven't really made up your mind about what you are making.

The handy and harmon web site has some good reference information.

If you are willing to join with a soft solder like eutectic

157 (95 tin, 5 silver, it's about three times the tensile strength of regular lead tin soft solder, but melts at about the same temp) then you can do it all with a home depot propane torch.

If you want to use a true silver solder then you would be required to use at *least* MAPP gas and restrict youself to smaller (below one cu. inch appx) volume of material you are heating.

For gas welding or brazing of large items then you will be fighting an uphill battle if you don't use an oxy-acetylene torch. Like really really uphill. Like burning an entire tank of gas, and getting one teeny tack on the item.

Jim

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You still haven't mentioned exactly what it is you are going to do.

Your original post mentions tin (melting point 450°F) and copper (melting point 2000°F). You solder copper with tin!! If you meant tin as the colloquialism (sp?) for thin steel sheet ("tin cans"), then yes a standard brass braze (m.p. circa 1650°F) would work. A $20 propane torch will barely get you there in terms of heat; some insulating firebricks backing up the work will heat things up faster.

Tim

-- "I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,

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Oh Jim Jim Jim, those little propane torches have a hell of a lot more dignity than that. I brazed all of of this sculpture:

just a blue tank, the $20 Bernzomatic head and on occasion, a few bits of busted up firebrick to help the thick stuff. Normal 1620°F or so flux-coated 1/8" dia. brass brazing rod.

On my reverberatory furnace, all the brazed joints were done with propane. A Reil style burner and much larger fire bricks of course, but nothing that couldn't be done off the small tanks. Just not often, and not without a tank of warm water.

Tim

-- "I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,

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I recognize that teeny pry bar. It's about four inches long. Which means that the largest volume of material you were bringing up to temps was about one cc or so at a time.

Go ahead and make that out of 3/8 inch diameter copper, or even brass, using the propane torch.

Steel has an *amazingly* low thermal conductivity. You can hold a wrench at one end while the other end is red-hot for bending.

Beside, the original poster was probably trying to braze copper to sapphire or something.

Jim

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Hee, I've annealed 1/4" copper tubing with it and no it isn't very fast. (Open-faced on a firebrick FWIW.)

Tim

-- "I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,

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Sam, for crying out loud, you can get a simple propane torch for less than $20, and you can read up on hard and soft soldering in the public library for free. That kind of money you can get collecting aluminum cans.-Jitney

Sam, for crying out loud, you can get a simple propane torch for less than $20, and you can read up on hard and soft soldering in the public library for free. That kind of money you can get collecting aluminum cans.-Jitney

Copper will anneal well below most braze flow temps...

Jim

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