Brass brazing

You will have a very hard time using ordinary brass rod as a brazing material - it is not designed to melt and flow cleanly.

Silver soldering would be a good idea, and you can do it with MAPP or even propane, but your workpieces are thick enough that you will need a burner that can put out a lot of heat. The 56% silver alloy is fairly easy to work with. You will need a paste type brazing flux (white is okay at that temperature).

Yes, the color will not match. But you will mechancially fit the joint very well, then then only a tiny bit of the silver solder will be used. You can file/sand and then polish away the excess, so that all that remains is the silver actually in the joint itself, which should be just a hairline. If you really want a color match, go for an alloy with more copper and less silver - but this will require a higher temperature.

However the easiest solution would be to use a soft solder ("normal solder") with liquid flux. For example, the sta-brite kit that you can buy of solder and flux. Again, the color won't match, but you will clean away all the excess solder so that won't matter very much.

For a good (nearly perfect) color match, you can use common "brazing rod" to join brass pieces. This rod is commonly available in the tools or welding sections of many variety/hardware-type stores.

If you select a flux-coated brazing rod, you won't need a separate container of flux. The coated rod may have a white or blue flux coating, applied over the phosphor bronze brazing rod. I've used brazing rod with a MAPP gas torch to join thin brass tubing, and other brass parts. If you haven't brazed before, try practicing on some scrap parts.

The colors given off by the brass parts at brazing temperatures is somewhat spectacular.

WB metalwork> I have several 3/8" brass rods and I want to braze them together to

Using brass to join brass would be welding, not brazing. It's difficult to do because the heat boils the zinc out of the brass.

Harmon Handy Easy-Flo 45 silver solder makes a joint that isn't a bad color match with brass if the joint is a fine line (as it should be anyway) and the brass and joint are highly polished after joining. MAPP would probably be sufficient to silverbraze 3/8" rod.

I would use Sil-phos. It is available in welding supply places. It can be used with a propane torch so a Mapp torch would be more than enough. It requires no flux and is made for joining copper ( or brass, but not steel ). Much stronger than soft solder, less expensive than silver solder ( and flux ). Look over in sci.engr.joining.welding for more info on it. Or just google on it.

Dan