Originally Posted by guy153

I'm TIG brazing with silicon bronze over TIG welds on steel for a project I'm working on now where he wants a "raw" finish. I'm going for the look of a fillet brazed frame, but I only have/know how to use the TIG. Silicon bronze on its own might be strong enough but I don't want to chance it.

The process works well. The hard part, that needs a lot of practice and patience, is filing down the fillets. A "dynafile" or "finger sander" can be used where you can reach things without gouging the actual tubes. In tighter spots you need to use hand-files, which actually aren't much slower at removing material, just harder work. So as with anything I'd try it all out on a couple of bits of scrap first.

The brazing does put a bit of heat into the tubes. It melts at a lower temperature than steel but it's still a big chunk of red-hot copper you're wrapping around those joints, so watch out for distortion. Bolt a bit of threaded rod securely between the dropouts to hold them at the correct spacing and leave it there throughout the process. Space your work out-- do a bit on each joint at a time before moving to somewhere else on the frame while it cools down, and recheck the alignment when you're done.