Originally Posted by Peterpan1
Steel rods are welding territory and you need intense focused heat like arc or OA. I'm a little curiouos about the Benzo Oxy rig. There seems to be more than one thing wrong with it, but people complain mostly about the O2 cost since the little O2 bottles run out pretty instantly. On the other hand, A real rig costs between 800-1000 dollars. I'm looking at 300 for the bottles, and in this case rental probably isn't an option, 100+ to fill them, 400 for the torch and accessories I want. So for a few frames I could buy a lot of O2 bottles. Anyway, I have TIG, and I can do the rest with propane.
A normal full size OA rig looks too big to me for bike jobs. You'd have to add accesory tips suitable for bike brazing. There are a couple makers selling mini OA rigs with small bottles, hose and multiple small tips, even a cutting torch - this is more what you need. These go for 250-350. I have seen them recc. by a few bike builders. Cant recall name. Come to think of it i think my local home depot had one of these.
The bernzo rig is a hobbist toy. Very expensive to operate and slow too. But its all you can justify when just doing simple repair jobs.
Paying someone could be cheaper, but hard to find an experienced bike brazer. There's a guy near me who builds bmx. He looked at me with a blank stare when i started talking brazing. Evidently all this guy knew was tig-ing heavy bmx tubing. That seems to be the norm - tig and mig. Relatively few use OA. And brazing is not suited for anything except bike frames, jewelry and other specialties.