Brazing w/small torch ?

[Sid 03]

Can I braze with a small Bernzo-Matic propane torch and some brazing rods. That package of rods states that they are for use w/oxy torch.

But I have seen a lot of people brazing w/o an Oxy setup. Will the torch get hot enough ?

Anyone have experience here ?

Thanks

[Thomas]

I never got above soldering with propane i also have an acetylene tank-torch for soldering. Neither without the boost from oxygen melted anything substantial including regular copper water piping. That is my experience only and may not be the correct answer. I did once buy a small oxy and mapp gas setup and that failed me too. Awaiting better answers as you are.

[micky]

You can get a hotter flame with MAPP gas than with propane, but I doubt it's hot enough. Well maybe to do something quite small but nothing that couldn't be done quicker and easier with one form or another of epoxy glue.

Back in 1982. I bought a Soiid-Ox kit. I guess they don't sell that anymore because Amazon thought I wanted a "sewing kit". I have it still but have used it only once, in 1982. It uses big pellets that you light with a match iirc and put into a bottle similar to a propane bottle, where they burn and release excess oxygen while burning, which goes through one half of a double hose and combines with propane** in the head. I used it to braze the fairly heavy chain to the gate of the chain link fence where I parked my car, so that I could hold the padlock and lock up with only two hands. It made it much more convenient. (It wasn't my lot or my fence or my chain, but I'm sure the owner and the owners of the other 4 cars that parked there appreciated what I'd done.) It lasted over a year and then I moved away. I think they had redone everything when I looked again 10 years later.

**(I don't know if MAPP existed in 1982, at least not at the consumer level.)

A problem was that you only got 5, 10 minutes from a pellet or maybe you could put more than one in at once, but they were expsnsive for a guy who wasn't even working on his own chain. I haven't read this yet:

I also bought at a yard sale a double hose with an attached head where one half is supposed to screw on to an standard 10" oxygen bottle and the other to a standard 10" what, MAPP, Acetylene, not sure. I'm saving it for when I need it. :-)

Seems to me this woudl be hot enough, but maybe the 10" bottles don't last long. I think that's true of oxygen, or maybe I mean that a bottle of oxygen costs much more than a bottle of propane.

I would bet there is some low-priced option for medium-sized jobs.

[micky]

Here is one from ebay: $45. I don't know how long the pellets last. Maybe the guy who wrote the artice above could tell you. The can is sealed tightly but still. I have maybe 8 of my 10 pellets left. They come in different colors (that means something) and sizes.

There are videos too, from only 11 years ago!

[micky]

This is a really good thread, and if you have more questions, it's a doggone welders' forum.

It seems like a good forum but there's nothing about the election, so I'm not sure.

3 or more posters say the pellets get old, and one says a kit like this is worth maybe $15, because the pellets are probably no good/

[Sid 03]

Either way, what type of flux should I be using ?

Thanks '

[rbowman]

MAPP ain't what it used to be.

[rbowman]

Very small pieces if you can control the heat loss.

[trader_4]

MAPP is hot enough, but it's no longer available. It's been replaced with a substitute after the plant that made it burned up. The replacement is not as hot. You can braze with a propane torch, it's far from ideal, but it depends on how big the torch is and how big the materials to be joined are. I used a double headed propane torch to braze a 3/4" AC line once, but I also had an assistant on it with another propane torch to help. Smaller would be easier.

[micky]

You'd think I would have gotten a Dear John letter.

Dang. I'd better save what's left in my bottle for special occasions.

When I was hin high school, I cleaned the lawn mower's carburetor or maybe it was a car's carburetor with cleaner (that came with a little basket) and it made it gleaming pretty with no effort on my part. 25 years later I tried to buy it again, but I think it was considered dangerous. How dangerous can MAPP be when it's supposed to be flammable? Maybe inhalation?

gas is widely regarded as a safer and easier-to-use substitute for acetylene. In early 2008, true MAPP gas production ended in North America when production was discontinued at the only remaining plant in North America that still manufactured it. However, many current products labeled "MAPP" are, in fact, MAPP substitutes. These versions contain mostly propylene with some propane, dimethyl ether is included as a 3rd ingredient in some versions.

The rest is very interesting but less so if you can't buy it anymore.