This is no problem for you to do !! Brazing is not that hard, its not black magic like some would
have you believe.
My dropout broke when I was staying for 3 months in DC. I went down to the local hardware and bought
a little propane and oxygen tank and brazed up fracture in the hotel room. That was 10 yrs ago, its
still just fine.
Clean extremely well. Even fingerprint. No Oil ! Use a little c-clamp to hold cable stops. File
little notches or groove into c-clamp to help hold. Use flux obviously.
Heat up and stick rod in flame close to where heating steel, when brazing rod melts you want it to
flow to steel, Don't get steel any hotter than to make this happen. I would say one to two practices
is all you need!
Thats [censored] about local welders not know what they are doing! They aren't idiots, believe me if
they are a professional welder they can easily do this and they will be professional about it. I
would still ask questions and LET him know the tubing is really really thin and also that you want
to Use Silver rod with lower temp and not brass. And that you absolutely can't have it overheated.
If the guy doesn't really listen or is arrogant, move on, he's probably not a professional welder...
(I personally would just use brass though). Hell just do this yourself.. its so simple !! Although
if you set this up (clean locate and clamp the pieces and then take it into a weld shop, they could
do this in about five minutes)
For the shifter bosses most of the heat should go into the bosses at first since they are heavy.
If you are going to mess with this stuff much I would seriously consider getting a normal torch,
with a normal setup. Or maybe a friend, brother-in-law, neighbor has a torch, or local college or
high school
I don't think a mini-the whole thing fits in your hand will do the trick. But you can get what I
bought ten years ago for about $30. The tanks don't last long though and can be expensive. like $5.
John
Quoted message said:I'm refurbishing an Ishiwata 022 steel frameset, and would like to add down tube shifter bosses
and top tube cable guides or stops. None of the local bike shops have the capability to do frame
brazing. One shop quoted $30 per joint, plus shipping to California. I can find other non-local
places like Cyclart that can do the work, but shipping costs are generally prohibitive.
A little bit of web research indicates that I can buy a 'mini-brazing torch' for less than about
$20. The specs indicate that these provide temperatures over 1,000 degs. C, and I understand that
silver brazing requires temperatures of about 500 to 700 degs. C. I'm fairly sure I can get high
silver content brazing rod and flux locally. How difficult would it be to braze the bosses and
guides myself using one of these torches - has anyone ever done this?
