How to Tig weld / braze with silicon and aluminum bronze 🤑
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2024
- On this episode we learn how to “Tig braze”. It’s similar to oxy-fuel brazing just cleaner and no smoke. It’s a very handy skill to have for welding ornamental cast iron and similar materials
Great information. You have a systematic approach that makes the process easy to understand
Very well done and informative video Thanks for pointing out the care need to not melt the base metal, I think that's been the problem I been having with tig brazing.
I am glad the video helped you out. I find running a fixed amperage on the welder and going max footpedal is a good way to prevent excessive heat and melting the base material. It takes a bit to get it dialed in but as long as you keep the arc on the bronze and not moving forward so fast you melt the metal ahead of the molten bronze you should be ok. To me it’s just like tig welding just at 20 amps or so less than normal.
Great video! I added a link to one of my videos to explain TIG brazing.
I've watched all of the usual suspects on YT....but have to say that this is one of the best tig brazing videos online. Great job! I've tig brazed with both silicon & aluminum bronze and really enjoy it. I originally tried both on DC, but after trying AC, I think the cleaning action improves wetting action for both & undoubtedly produces a cleaner bead. I've also tried both to build up/join brass & steel, with limited/minimal success, due to the zinc fuming off- I recently discovered phosphor bronze which has worked much better on brass build up/joining.
Keep up the great content. Subscribed
Thanks for the kind comments! I agree that the pinch of AC really helps. You’re spot on with the difficulty of joining brass and steel. Stuff like that I generally would torch braze because of tungsten contamination issues. I mostly deal silicon bronze with ornamental iron, and occasionally art work. It has a lot of useful applications though. Personally I think it’s fun to look at gold tig welds lol.
Good lesson. Thank you.
No problem 😀
Re watching your great, to me, videos! Nice info! Thanks!
No problem. It’s a useful skill to be able to tig braze. If you’re practicing tig brazing, think about it more like flowing molten chocolate and less like melting the base metal. Once you get the hang of it the process isn’t very hard.
Thanx for showing the aluminum bronze. I have a specific need for a small bronzing job which I believe aluminum bronze is the best solution. I don't know much about it so when I get my pound of aluminum bronze, I will be practicing a lot just for two parts about an inch long and 8th inch wide and deep. LOL. But it's important or else I would use some other technique.
Glad it helped you. Aluminum bronze incredibly strong. If you have the option of AC it will help a lot. Running a #8 or 10 cup on a gas lens with decent argon flow will help some too, small cups seem to produce a lot of soot. If you have any issues doing it let me know. Practicing will surely help, I am sure you will get it.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg
I was watching another utub vid in which he was testing different flows. Underflo, just right and overflo. The underflo always produced very poor brazes. The overflo usually was subpar, but not always. The just right flo always produced great brazes, however, the trick is to know what is "just right".
What I am going to TIG is an engine (2HP electric) shaft that the key got loose and wrecked the shaft--this is steel, and external. Just need to build up the wall of the keyway. What I am afraid of is that the shaft is about 1.25 inches across and that the needed heat will have to be just right to start. I cannot practice on the shaft. I will practice on a like shaft however.
The other -part is a mating part that is cast iron. It has a gouge inside which is a bit smaller but more difficult to do simply because I will have to extend the tungsten out mayber 1 in and a half. That shouldn't present too much of a problem as the argon will fill the tube. The problem which may take place is the flame going all over the place.
Any suggestions?
I have done repairs like you have said, and I have also brazed bearing caps on big engines were corners broke off or the like. Here are some tips, hope they help:
Brazing requires the material to be clean, make sure you use whatever means needed to clean the shaft to bright&shiny clean metal. Acetone wipe everything down when your done.
Brazing is done at a lower temp than welding, but it still has heat input, so don’t just do multiple pass with disregard. Bronze doesn’t pull as hard as actual er70 wire so the shaft will be straighter when the repair is done. Keep in mind it’s wear resistance is obviously much less (not a issue if a keyed pulley is on the shaft).
Between every pass of braze let it cool slightly, and wire wheel the surface. You want it clean for multiple passes.
You can run a big cup but keep in mind if you run a big cup with 90% ac balance (DCEN) you may get the ac arc shorting out to the internal lens screen (like with a furick cup). Most big lens setups say DC only. You saw how much better aluminum bronze works with a pinch of A/c, so if possible run a/c.
I would highly recommend you lookup Washington alloys website, and look under silicon bronze and aluminum bronze tig fillers. When you look at their spec sheets they give great tips on how to get the best results. One of them being I believe they recommend a preheat to the part to ensure proper adhesion of the bronze.
Lastly I would take a rag completely soaked in cold water and drape it over the motor shaft as close to the bearing as possible. That way as the shaft heats up the heat will be pulled out a bit before it smokes the front bearing grease/seal. It also wouldn’t hurt to clamp a angle iron piece to the opposite side of the repair to help keep the shaft straight. The bronze won’t pull much but the heat alone can cause the shaft to slightly warp.
A wise man learns from his mistakes. A smart man learns from the mistakes of others. Or as Eleanor Roosevelt said, learn from others mistakes because you can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself!
Really nice puddle control.
Thanks. Bronze flows a lot like solder and when you get everything right it’s not too bad. Definitely pays to have everything clean. I use it a fair amount on castings and that is hard with a tig setup over a torch because of all of the contaminates that jump onto the tungsten lol.
it’s just like tig welding just at 20 amps or so less than normal.
Pretty much. If you can tig weld you can tig braze. The hardest part is getting the right amperage at the start, since you don’t want to melt the base material.
Very, very helpful. Thanks!
No problem. Once you can tig braze it opens up quite a lot of repair options, it’s worth learning 😀
Great info - it would be helpful if there was a dark lens on the camera
That's cool, i never done this stuff but good watching. Will Silicon Bronze TIG Braze brass to steel. I have a 3/4 inch male brass threaded i want to go through the bottom of a 44 gallon steel drum and two brass nuts each side and then seal it with a solid TIG Braze? Should i buy 1.5 mm Silicon Bronze Rod?
So brass can be very interesting to braze, because it often leaches oil and contaminates. I have done it for artistic purposes. With tig expect to have issues with tungsten contamination. Wear a respirator of some sort, don’t breathe the fumes. Rod size of 1.5mm should get the job done. Expect a lot of black spot cleanup. Hope that helps 👍
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Sounds like something not to try for the new, I've ordered 1kg of Silicon Bronze 1.6mm rods. I will play around a bit see what happens with various metals etc but i decided from a plumbers advice to just use 3/4 inch plastic tank bungs in the bottom of the drum. Though if i start using a centrifuge to filter waste veg oil it needs to be heated pretty warm and ran through pumps and lines ect and will likely try braze or weld a decent 1" metal pipes in to handle it. Thanks for the tips. I posted a vid my channel with what i did so far.
Great information.
I am still new and planning to Tig weld. I am trying to wrap my head around the 90% penetration factor... How doesn't your tungsten blow up being that high? Do you need to run a higher argon? Maybe I have something mixed up but thank you in the mean time.
So 90% ac balance means 90% electrode negative (penetration). It’s the electrode positive that puts heat into the tungsten. Universally machines “a/c balance” control is how much negative you run, aka 75% balance means 75% EN 25% ep. Some machines (typically cheaper ones) are the opposite. It’s best to verify with the manual of the machine to determine what is being adjusted.
Thank you!
Can I braze aluminum parts with a DC machine? or do you still need AC for brazing it
So aluminum bronze can’t be used for aluminum, despite the fact it contains some aluminum. You can technically braze aluminum with tig, but it’s going to be somewhat difficult. Conventional aluminum brazing is done with a oxyfuel torch, and a rod with flux on it. Tig doesn’t work well with rods with flux because the flux contaminates the tungsten. So you would have to deal with tungsten contamination, or attempt to knock the flux off and use it. I have a feeling it would perform poorly without the flux cleaning the base material.
Beyond that using helium makes it possible to dc weld aluminum, but the downside to this is helium is very expensive and within a bottle or two you could just buy a ac machine lol.
Would silicon bronze be a good option for affixing zinc/galvanized nuts to steel pipe/tube for shop fixtures and such?
Bronze will still react with the zinc like normal steel wire. It’s very common for me to weld nuts onto things, and I generally clean the zinc off in the area I tig weld it. I use either er70 or 312 stainless wire to do the welding. The result is a clean weld that’s strong. There is no practical way to maintain corrosion resistance after welding zinc coated metals though, the zinc boils off. Bronzes could use used, the two main benefits would be better corrosion resistance of the weld (over er70) and lower heat input. The lower heat input would cause less distortion to the threads, which could help reduce the time to tap the threads.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Thank you very much! Your content is great. I learn more with each clip I watch. Thanks again!!
Can you weld stainless exhaust using tig and Silicon bronze ?
Great question. On face value I would think the expansion/contraction of the exhaust pipe would cause failure of the silicon bronze. If the significant movement didn’t the higher temps combined with the movement would likely cause failure. On muffler that’s far from the heat I bet it would work fine. On a header not so much.
Interestingly enough it’s actually pretty common for people to have weld failures on stainless headers (I have repaired a ton of them). It’s very hard to not have internal suck back/undercut on thin stainless tube. That leaves a perfect place for the tube to crack. Back purging with argon will help reduce this. Well with silicon bronze, you wouldn’t have suck back because you’re not melting the base material at all. This could be a benefit on super thin material. Again I don’t believe the bronze would handle the thermal cycles without cracking.
Could you do a cut away of the bronze aluminum weld you did just curious how that compares to the silicon bronze. Thanks for the content
You mean a cut and etch, or just cut? I have a feeling both are identical since the goal is to only melt the filler. I will do that though 😀
@@makingmistakeswithgreg I was curious if you could actually see the aluminum layer with the bronze cap. I wonder witch one is a stronger braze or if there comparable.
@@jeffbellinger8542 ok sure, I will do that and have it out in the next couple days 😀
The video will be live tonight at 4pm. It’s a short video titled silicon bronze cut and polish. The results were a bit surprising to me. 😀
It'd be awesome if one could braze over paint, ie, have that golden bead visible in a finished thing.
You could buff the paint off the braze and clear the whole thing to make it visible. The clear will protect the bronze as well keeping it looking good for longer 😀
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Yeah, could be nice 👍🏻
Very nice videos btw, I've been learning a lot! Also btw... would you know if pulsed mig spray transfer with 90/10 gas is usable for 3mm and such thicknesses in general, so that I could just have that one gas bottle? Looking to upgrade from my really old 160A mig to either tig or a more modern mig. I'd like to be able to minimize distortion and also avoid sparks and fumes when I can, including those from grinding.
Way too cold! Practice welding copper and then make a vid about bronze alloys:) “get in hot and get out” cheers bud your vids are cool either way😎
What do you know about ERCu wire?
So straight ERcu wire I believe is only generally used for welding copper materials. I would imagine it could be used for other oddball jobs and possibly even auto body. I looked up a spec sheet and it appears to be very low in tensile strength (8,000) so it’s significantly weaker than aluminum bronze and silicon bronze. The benefit it has is it would exactly match coppers color, something that your typical copper/bronze alloys wouldn’t do.
That is Kool
Have you ever tig with 9% nickel bronze
I have used a nickel bronze wire with oxy fuel to repair things. I have not used it with tig. I would imagine it works just like silicon bronze with tig. The addition of nickel would likely cause it to need a bit more heat than silicon bronze to flow out. Brazing with tig operates very similar with most brazing alloys. The goal is to hit a temp where the filler flows out and sticks to the metal but the base material doesn’t melt.