by John Capotosto
When solder won’t stick it but you or your equipment aren’t quite up to welding, you can braze. Brazing produces joints on metal parts that are almost as strong as welds but that take a lot less heat. Since you aren’t working with a puddle of molten steel, brazing also is easier and safer. In fact, the technique is quite similar to soft soldering, only you use a bit more heat and the filler is silver, brass or bronze wire instead of lead-tin solder. Newly introduced torches put brazing within the capabilities of home builders. Done right, a brazed joint in stainless can have a tensile strength of 133,000 lbs. per sq. in.—stronger than the base metals. And, unlike welding, brazing can join dissimilar metals. You can’t weld copper to cast iron or copper to steel but brazing them is easy. You can’t even weld dissimilar steels—tool steel to carbon steel—but they braze. Brazing also is good for malleable iron castings—in fact, any metal that melts at a higher temperature than the brazing rod. About 800°F. Since you braze at temperatures much lower than the melting points of the parts, you don’t have to contend with distortion and warping, two factors that plague even skilled welders. Beginners have it harder.
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