HF Blade Welder

Dunno , but silver soldering is a pain ,

why can't we MIG blades ?

with CO2 theres no chance of crap in weld .

anneal at cherry red ( but dont cup your hands around the red light too much or it will infact be a "dull" red which will NOT anneal . I did this in the military in 63 , broke many blades )

The reason its a pain is this kind of welding requires lots of amps , like my 230vac HarbFright spot welders . They work , but why not spot weld with a MIG and a copper block ? Its far less wt and so easy to time the spot weld with a computer in the box . The only reason Detroit MUST use spot welders to glue your Chevy with is TIME and accuracy . a 100KW spot welder will outrun any other type of sheet metal welding . I got time , i dont have the 120,000 times thickness needed for a good spot weld ( which makes HF welder a very weak spot welder .)

You would be happy with a hand held spot welder if it had 6000 amps min at 2.8 vac . HH Spot welders are too weak .

BTW HF hand held band saw switched to a gear cut in the rim , i returned it , it wont last like the older HF with chain drive .

Anyone got the HF $450 MIG ? How big is the pinch roller ? See anything bad ?

Proctologically Violated=A9=AE wrote:

Someone here made ref. to the 4x6 bandsaw group on yahoo, which I joined, after much adoo. Mercifully, they did accept my handle, which other forums have rejected. Go figger.

Inyway, tufftooth.com makes a silver-soldering *kit*, which includes a jig of sorts, for silver soldering 1/2" band saw blades. A couple of the guys on this forum actually do this!! Say it's quick, easy, strong. wow.... It's not something I'm going to do tomorrow, but eventually, when my broken blades reach the 10 lb-point, I will. Better than butt another pc of 1/2 assed equipment, that will eventually break. Don't really need to buy the kit--the jig I'm sure is rudimentary--likely obvious to anyone needing to do this. But it's mebbe $40, w/ all the solder, flux, jig, whatever.

Dunno , but silver soldering is a pain ,

why can't we MIG blades ?

with CO2 theres no chance of crap in weld .

anneal at cherry red ( but dont cup your hands around the red light too much or it will infact be a "dull" red which will NOT anneal . I did this in the military in 63 , broke many blades )

The reason its a pain is this kind of welding requires lots of amps , like my 230vac HarbFright spot welders . They work , but why not spot weld with a MIG and a copper block ? Its far less wt and so easy to time the spot weld with a computer in the box . The only reason Detroit MUST use spot welders to glue your Chevy with is TIME and accuracy . a 100KW spot welder will outrun any other type of sheet metal welding . I got time , i dont have the 120,000 times thickness needed for a good spot weld ( which makes HF welder a very weak spot welder .)

You would be happy with a hand held spot welder if it had 6000 amps min at 2.8 vac . HH Spot welders are too weak .

BTW HF hand held band saw switched to a gear cut in the rim , i returned it , it wont last like the older HF with chain drive .

Anyone got the HF $450 MIG ? How big is the pinch roller ? See anything bad ?

Proctologically Violated©® wrote:

Its far easier and cleaner to TIG bandsaw blades.

Gunner

Gunner,

can you describe how you do it ? I silver-solder mine, but did try TIG'n it once. At the lowest amperage it instantly blew a hole through the blade. I didn't use any backing material, which, from what I hear, is a key ?

Gunner wrote:

Yeah, I'm curious as well. Rashid, how do you silver solder your blades? What size? Consistent results? Would like to try this.

I snagged a nice piece of 3/8 x 4" copper bar..and milled a sharp cornered 1" wide slot down the center of it. I cut my blades so the teeth match properly then clamp it into the slot, with the teeth up against the side of the slot. (this helps disipate heat on the thinnest sections). Then using a .040 electrode..and the lowest heat I can use..about 15-25 amps IRRC..and using 308 stainless filler, I gently weld the two pieces together. I then grind the little bit of weld that sticks out with a dremal tool, then reheat it with the tig until its a faint faint orange, several times, and let it cool. Ive got about a 90% sucess rate at the weld lasting until the teeth are worn off. In the 10# of breakage..I simply repeat.

Ive got at least 3 blade welders..none of which work..or I cant get them to work properly. So in self defense..I read about tig welding and it works pretty well..for me. YMMV of course.

Gunner

Btw...if you have a tig welder..you can still do a marvelous job of silversoldering. Keep in mind..the tig gives you a nice clean heat source.

I use my tig to heat and bend, braze and so forth as well as weld.

Gunner

I haven't done it, but friend of mine who's been around the trade for 60 years or so, silver solders his band saw blades using an acetylene or propane torch. He made a fixture to hold the blade ends together, and fluxes the ends and solders the two ends together. He says he rarely has any problems with the resulting joint. He demonstrated this and the blade worked well.

Peter

================ I'm not Rashid, but see:

[3/4 way down]

#36597 or ITEM 36597-0VGA

also see

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).