I'm pretty sure it was lack of heat. If you look at picture number 2 showing the head tube, there is a large portion at the top of the downtube joint that shows clean steel where there should be brass. Any joint that is strong enough to ride would have resulted in tearing the tube. You would never see clean steel where the brass had wetted out, and that spot should have wetted out.
And in general, there wasn't enough of a fillet, but that just made it so it failed faster.
Originally Posted by
adrapp
I used the oxy/mapp. The brass was liquid when it was touched to the tubes just off the flame so I feel like it was hot enough. I had trouble getting more brass on the joint.
with brass it's a bit of a balancing act how hot you want it before it hits the tube. If the tube isn't hot enough to wet out, it doesn't help to heat the brass to a liquid state