TIG welding Brass

[Buzz]

Has anyone ever TIG welded Brass? If so what is the setup?

TNXBuzz

[brians]

I would recoomend silicon bronze rod (it's actually a braizng rod) with your welder on DC and argon for shielding. Be careful, silicon bronze fumes are not good for you. It's a braze so don't melt the base metal to much.

Brian

[Fat-Fab.com]

I have tried: with no real success and the issue is that brass is an alloy of of copper and zinc. Copper has a melting point of 1980F. Zinc melts at 780F and boils at 1700F so by the time you got the copper to melt your zinc would have boiled off.

Easer to say a tig arc is about 35000F so the moment you get an arc established on brass and the mass of the brass heats to a certain point the zinc cooks off in a neat shower of sparks and gives off a toxic gas that causes metal fume fever.
So no you can not tig weld brass you can silver solder it with great results.



TJ

[jas-b]

I'll have to agree with fat-fab. Whenever I try to tig a hydraulic line that has been brazed, it "explodes" if any brass is left. The brass boils off under the arc. If anbody can help, I'm all ears.

[trstek]

back in the early 80's worked in a shop that had an aluminum-bronz gun. Sprayed alum-bronz like a paint gun. Was used to build up base metal as prep for coatinigs. Could be 30 below zero outside, all doors were open to vent the place.

All the brass was silver soldered.

I tried brazing rod on aluminum, as stated earlier, like fire works, nasty fumes. Filled in a hole nice, but was a real nasty experience.

[505HotRod]

I have done this with much success. Use silicone bronze filler, argon sheilding gas DCEN. I have made sneeze gaurds to go over restaurant salad bars out of 2" 16ga. round tubing. I find the brass acts like aluminum by the way it takes a lot of heat to get the puddle started and it is hard to see when the base material changes state. It does weld kind of dirty but all in all it isn't that bad. When the weld seams are polished, if you look close, you can see a difference in color of the brass and "orangish" silicone bronze. Any more questions, I will gladly answer.

Mark

[FusionKing]

I also have had past success using silicone bronze only at the time used an OA torch ....welded an ear back on a big brass elephant and you couldn't hardly see it. I was nervous about doing it but it wasn't really all that bad. That was about 8 yrs ago. Haven't tried it with the tig tho but I'm sure I could make it work ok.
There are different grades of brass tho so I would also say YMMV

[Wicked one]

I have done this with much success. Use silicone bronze filler, argon sheilding gas DCEN. I have made sneeze gaurds to go over restaurant salad bars out of 2" 16ga. round tubing. I find the brass acts like aluminum by the way it takes a lot of heat to get the puddle started and it is hard to see when the base material changes state. It does weld kind of dirty but all in all it isn't that bad. When the weld seams are polished, if you look close, you can see a difference in color of the brass and "orangish" silicone bronze. Any more questions, I will gladly answer.

Mark

I've got to agree with mark . I've welded lots of it with a rod called everdure I think it's the same thing as your talking about. Jef

[phaxtris]

Silicon bronze rod and its easy as pie

[FusionKing]

I have tried: with no real success and the issue is that brass is an alloy of of copper and zinc. Copper has a melting point of 1980F. Zinc melts at 780F and boils at 1700F so by the time you got the copper to melt your zinc would have boiled off.

Easer to say a tig arc is about 35000F so the moment you get an arc established on brass and the mass of the brass heats to a certain point the zinc cooks off in a neat shower of sparks and gives off a toxic gas that causes metal fume fever.
So no you can not tig weld brass you can silver solder it with great results.



TJ

I always thot tig would be easier cause you can vary your heat ..I do know the OA works tho. Nobody's brought me any brass to play with lately, just tons of aluminum.