Originally Posted by
Andrew R Stewart
Are you trying to do both a flow into the root and the fillet in one pass? While faster and likely sees less total heat going in to the tubing it can be a lot for a newbie to keep track of.
Are you able to reposition the practice piece is multiple ways so the area being worked on is fairly horizontal? The wire that is holding the two tubes together might be hindering this. Do you have a metal tube block (or a long enough practice tube to hold in a wood block or rubber jaws) that can hold one tube and also allow for rotating the work a bit while brazing? Or use a smaller tube as a "stud" to slide the practice piece over... Andy
[thanks for the tips!]
Yeah, on that one I flowed/filleted in a single pass mostly - I sort of dropped a big blob then pulled it out a little with the torch the filled up all at once, so hopefully I got good fusion but unsure. The pre-fluxed rod I have is thicker and a little harder to control.
Got the Type B flux today and tried again with the thinner C-04 rod, did two passes this time and got some still-ugly but probably functional joints. got some clamping tweezers out so I could change the position of the joint around and hopefully give myself some better angles (definitely seemed to help coming around the inside corners. After I took the pics I put it in the vise and hammered on it, the tube bent and the braze stayed put so I assume that I'm getting a strong-enough joint. When I have a sec I'll saw it open and inspect from the inside as well. I don't care too much about the aesthetics right now, but if there's something straightforward I could be doing to get a smoother joint I'm interested.
First pass to try and get filler into the joint - I applied just a little at a time and pulled it forward (hopefully into the joint) with the torch:
2nd pass to build up the fillet - looks pretty blobby but seems OK?
