I’ve always preferred bare brazing rod and use laundry borax for flux. works good.
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Never knew about Borax Andy, good to know!
Bryan S
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So I would need an oxygen tank too?
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Jeff,
I have had rods go bad. Probably have some now from being out of the fabrication loop for so long…I will rescue them with Andy’s Borax.
I know I would have just thrown them out and bought more…thanks for the pointers!
Bryan S
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Bill,
You would need an Oxygen tank. Would be just like a normal torch set only replacing the Acetylene bottle with Propane. Get a big Oxygen tank so you don’t have to fill it as often, you’ll be glad you did.
Bryan S
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Thanks guys for all this information. My acetylene tank is almost dry and was cussing this morning cause I didn’t get a refill yesterday. You can get propane 7 days a week
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Works with silver too.
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Borax is also used for forge welding, among other things. I have some rods 20+ years old. Dad gave me a few he had a long time ago. Could be 50 years old, no problem with the rod just add flux. I had some mig wire turn to rust in a couple years.
Another trick with the henrob was using sold copper wire with no flux, worked good. Should try it with propane and a standard torch. I’ve burned a lot of fence wire for steel welding. Comes in different gages. I’ve also cut up sheet metal for rod in a pinch.
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How do you expect the welding company to make any money if you are using borax detergent, propane, and fence wire ( my fav.).? I’m loosing a lot of sleep over what they will do . I wonder how electric fence wire will work in a mig??? TomC
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I have tried acetylene tips with propane a long time ago, if I remember right about the time it gets adjusted down to were its hot enough it will blow out.
But go ahead try it, be a good experiment.
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If ya go to eBay search for propane cutting tip or something like that and you will find clone tips for about $6.
Peace out.
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I think the galvanized coating on electric fence wire would contaminate the weld if used as-is. It could be burnt off, or there may be uncoated wire available.
Garry Tait, Manitoba
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A propane tip showed up in my mailbox the other day. As it often happens,
every one of my propane tanks is empty.
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If it weren’t for bad luck you might have no luck at all------- Is your mail man Santa Clause or something. Every time you think of something that you would like but don’t have and have probably gotten along without – it shows up in your mail box. Remember when you light the torch turn on BOTH the gas and oxygen so that it will pop a little. TomC
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It was rainy today and as usual I didn’t have any ambition, so I took on a simple project. WELDINNG WITH PROPANE. I had several sizes of wire .031, .054 and .122 dia. I had several gages of sheet metal .024,035,and .065. I had three regular oxy / acet welding tips #0, ? , #1
I started with the pressures I had use to cut with.(found out my gages don’t read correctly)
First problem is, you can NOT turn on the oxygen along with the gas. It blows everything out. Second you have to turn the gas valve on just a “crack”. Again, to high blows the flame out. When you get the gas lit, then you can turn the gas up until the flame “jumps” off the end of the tip. Then back it down. Now turn on the Oxygen. You can open the oxygen until the flame comes to a very nice point. Everything looking good.
Now is when “the ship hits the sand”. The flame is very cold. Even with the .031 or .054 ga wire it was hard to get the wire to puddle on the end of the wire before touching it to the hot metal. Once you got a blob of wire on the metal, it was almost impossible to “work” the puddle. On thiner metal, I eventually blew a hole in the base metal. On the thicker piece it took for ever to get the base stock hot. The smaller welding tips were worse than the bigger ones, but there again with the bigger hotter flame I had less control of the heat in the metal and wire.
I conclude that it will take a lot more practice to learn to weld with propane. In cutting I went to the propane tip for my O/X torch and it cut fine. The welding tips did not work. TomC
PS I have another set of gages that I might put on and try varying the gas pressures, but I don’t have much hope.
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I use the cutting tip for welding and cutting. It gives more heat control I found out. I adjust the light blue flame tips so they are about 3/8" long just like for cutting and then hold those tips farther away from the work than you would with acetylene. It seems like the maximum heat is 1/2 to 3/4" away from the tip.
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TomC,
Everything you said is correct…just a little time to spend getting used to it.
Don is right, I have also used the cutting torch head to weld with.
Bryan S
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Thank you for the comments. I REALY want to get rid of renting an acetylene tank so I will keep trying. Some one said that you could not weld with propane so when I had problems I gave up too easily.TomC
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Tom, I never had luck with reg. braze/weld tips, I have used the cutting tips for brazing, just get smaller cut tips. 00,or 000. Al
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Went out last night to do a little experimenting on what I have been told. Dahhh. I’m out of gas. Where have I heard that story before. TomC
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