Can it be done? What gas is required? Is wire available for this process? This would be mostly for art work, not structural or race car stuff. Any sites I should check out? I have some cool ideas, but need to know how to make it work. TIA!!
Can it be done? What gas is required? Is wire available for this process? This would be mostly for art work, not structural or race car stuff. Any sites I should check out? I have some cool ideas, but need to know how to make it work. TIA!!
A TIG can. I've never tried it but there are settings right in the manual.
I can't see a MIG doing it - the wire would be too soft to run or prohibitively expensive if copper wire.
MIG blast brass/copper all to hell when you run across brazed seams in steel bodies.
TIG or Gas setup.
stafford1500 wrote: MIG blast brass/copper all to hell when you run across brazed seams in steel bodies. TIG or Gas setup.
Any welder, mig, tig or stick will blast brass all over the place if you are trying to use a steel electrode.
To OP- I've never heard of brass mig wire, although Chrysler did use some brass on particular seams back in the 80's, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't an automated wire feed situation.
TIG works well. Single strand copper wire is a good filler rod. At welding school a guy used copper flashing and romex wire to make some walleyes for hanging on the wall. I remember it taking a lot of heat, similar to welding aluminium. I also remember DCEN works best. 100% argon gas is used. Copper filler rod is available for stonger welds. The best looking weld will use the same type filler metal as the base.
You could MIG braze it using silicon bronze mig wire. The weld will not have the same appearance as the base metal however. There are copper MIG wires available as well.
I hope that this helps.
MIG can be set up with silicon bronze wire and pure argon shield gas and do pretty nice brazing. My buddy uses this method for non-structural bodywork.
Would solder handle the loads you envision? I solder copper artwork together. Propane torch is low cost as is the solder.
I am after the appearance of copper / brass, so solder is not going to work. I thought it should be possible, but just never came across any info on it.
My Grandfather had a large cast lead horse statue that he got as a young man. It survived all of the grandkids, but right before he died, Grandma knocked it over and broke a leg off. She was devastated and Grandpa was really upset. After he died, I saw the horse with the leg taped on and heard the story. She said she tried to have it repaired and everyone said it couldn't be fixed. I took it to work and used our special top-secret Government soldering flux that can solder water to plastic and fixed it. Although the repair was mechanically invisible, the original 1930s finish of faux-bronze/aged copper was lost. Having done stained glass, I knew of a brush-on solution that makes solder and/or lead look like copper.
TL:DR Use solder and brush on copper patina like this: Solder-to-Copper Stuff
Here's what it looks like brushed on solder:
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