For those who know how to braze

[CROB]

How did you learn?
I'm very keen to learn this skill but it's an intimidating prospect and it seems like there's a lot to do wrong, even just in terms of getting the right materials/equipment.

I'm interested to know how others have learned to do this, what's the best place to start etc?

 

[jim haseltine]

I learned at college. As an 'all-rounder' part of an Electrical Engineering course we had a section (6 months I think) where we did workshop and mechanical training which included oxy welding and as what they thought an aside, brazing. By choice I spent my spare time for at least half that 6 months brazing.
You could try searching for adult education courses - my resistance welding skills have gone down hill through lack of use (though I'd like to blame my old MiG machine) so I'm contemplating a refresher course at the local college. There's no mention of brazing in the course description though.

 

[CROB]

I learned at college. As an 'all-rounder' part of an Electrical Engineering course we had a section (6 months I think) where we did workshop and mechanical training which included oxy welding and as what they thought an aside, brazing. By choice I spent my spare time for at least half that 6 months brazing.
You could try searching for adult education courses - my resistance welding skills have gone down hill through lack of use (though I'd like to blame my old MiG machine) so I'm contemplating a refresher course at the local college. There's no mention of brazing in the course description though.

Thanks @jim haseltine , yeah I had a look at the local colleges but everything seems to focus just on welding. Brazing courses are few and far between, aside from bike specific ones but they are very expensive by the looks of it.
Out of interest, how long did it take you before you felt comfortable with it? I am considering just buying some equipment and teaching myself, but don't know if that's realistic.

 

[bikeworkshop]

I don't see why you can't teach yourself.
I was taught at school, we had a metal working option.
Much later i did a proper course at college, really to get a handle on the safety aspects of storing and working with gas professionally in a building with other workers and residents above.
We did tig on aluminium too.
Fun.

You could start cheaply (like well under 100 quid) with mapp gas and silver solder, just getting the feel for creating the hotspot, keeping it balanced and moving it along. Keeping it clean, getting the right amount of flux and solder at the right temperature.
Mapp is useless for brazing bicycles, but works the same way, so you can get the feel.
If you like that, you could spend the thousand pounds necessary on the oxy acetylene setup.
When BOC started to charge 250/year cylinder rental, I bought my own cylinders and new regulators/hose from British welding supplues. They were good.

 

[jim haseltine]

All of the above. I honestly can't remember how long it took for me to treat gas work (welding/brazing) as anything other than worrying. I recall that I was better at it than others on my course but that was probably because I had quite extensive experience of end-feed soldering. I then bought myself a mini gas setup similar to this one and later invested in a BOC PortaPak oxy acetylene kit for use on cars at home (rather naughtily omitted to inform my insurance company) - still got the torch and regulators but returned the cylinders when the rental became uneconomical for the amount I was using the stuff. I had around half a cylinder of oxygen at the time and as there were no refunds wasn't going to let them have that back so took the cylinder into my garden and vented it to atmosphere. If you start thinking about your own oxy acetylene gear be aware that there are regulations about transporting cylinders - if you have cylinders on a vehicle you HAVE to carry safety data sheets but you also aren't allowed to carry the data sheets if you've not got cylinders on board.
For the little bits of brazing that I do now I use the Mapp gas Rothenberger torch which I use for plumbing and lead-loading.
For anything beyond just sticking two bits of metal together with brass you need to understand preparing a joint, how to heat it (not obvious) and where/how to feed the filler rod.

 

[3wheeler7]

I learned back in the 1970s as part of my apprenticeship at the Royal Ordnance Factory Nottingham, ROF (N). I opted to become a sheetmetal worker and spent the next 4 years in the sheetmetal shop fabricating components for such projects as the 105mm Lightweight gun, Eager Beaver military forklift, Chieftan Bridgelayer, Combat Engineering Tractor (CET) etc.
After 4 years at college (City & Guilds Fabrication and Welding course FWT4) and 3 years piecework - I got fed up of being under a TIG welding helmet and went to Rolls-Royce working on jet pipe fabrication.
It's all a long time in the past now but I stayed in aerospace (behind a desk - up the management ladder and down again) until retiring a few years ago.
What's all this got to do with brazing? - well there's an awful lot to learn about so called "brazing", different alloys/temperatures etc for different applications. I've never researched the filler alloys used for bicycle frame construction so on that point I'm ignorant but I've used brass alloys (bronze welding), silver alloys (silver soldering or hard soldering, often referred to as brazing but technically not).
As a first step I'd try to find a good Metal Joining Handbook and from it identify which processes suit your eventual goals, then set yourself up and practice, practice, practice....

 

[novocaine]

my dad taught me. certified welder on gas and SMAW.
yer you can teach yourself, but you'd be better spending on a few hours with pro at you elbow. Gas welding/brazing especially can be really really scary when you get it wrong, in fact it can be scary when you get it right.

if you want to do real brazing (as in not soldering) you'll need real equipment and don't forget to tell you house insurance, especially if you go down the acetylene route. for small stuff (and yes you can do bikes) you could be just as well going down the oxy propane route.

have you thought about TIG?

 

[Nob]

Similar to above was taught during my mechanical apprenticeship ship on all forms of metal joining from
Brazing Bronze Welding, silver solder, Tig & mig, Acetylene welding & Arc. I was always good at Arc & can still do this pretty well.

Sometimes frame builders will do courses so look at for these as they need to get alternate form of income

 

[CROB]

I don't see why you can't teach yourself.
I was taught at school, we had a metal working option.
Much later i did a proper course at college, really to get a handle on the safety aspects of storing and working with gas professionally in a building with other workers and residents above.
We did tig on aluminium too.
Fun.

You could start cheaply (like well under 100 quid) with mapp gas and silver solder, just getting the feel for creating the hotspot, keeping it balanced and moving it along. Keeping it clean, getting the right amount of flux and solder at the right temperature.
Mapp is useless for brazing bicycles, but works the same way, so you can get the feel.
If you like that, you could spend the thousand pounds necessary on the oxy acetylene setup.
When BOC started to charge 250/year cylinder rental, I bought my own cylinders and new regulators/hose from British welding supplues. They were good.

That's a good idea actually, hadn't though of that.
I know smaller accessories like bottle mounts etc are often put on with silver so maybe that's a good place to start.
I've seen oxypropane setups which didn't look too expensive and I think would probably work for my purposes. Less dangerous too by the sounds of it.

 

[CROB]

All of the above. I honestly can't remember how long it took for me to treat gas work (welding/brazing) as anything other than worrying. I recall that I was better at it than others on my course but that was probably because I had quite extensive experience of end-feed soldering. I then bought myself a mini gas setup similar to this one and later invested in a BOC PortaPak oxy acetylene kit for use on cars at home (rather naughtily omitted to inform my insurance company) - still got the torch and regulators but returned the cylinders when the rental became uneconomical for the amount I was using the stuff. I had around half a cylinder of oxygen at the time and as there were no refunds wasn't going to let them have that back so took the cylinder into my garden and vented it to atmosphere. If you start thinking about your own oxy acetylene gear be aware that there are regulations about transporting cylinders - if you have cylinders on a vehicle you HAVE to carry safety data sheets but you also aren't allowed to carry the data sheets if you've not got cylinders on board.
For the little bits of brazing that I do now I use the Mapp gas Rothenberger torch which I use for plumbing and lead-loading.
For anything beyond just sticking two bits of metal together with brass you need to understand preparing a joint, how to heat it (not obvious) and where/how to feed the filler rod.

Yeah the Acetylene aspect puts me off, I've heard propane can be used in its place as long as your not trying to weld, and doesn't come with the same regulations and dangers of acetylene. Frankly I could do without all that hassle and risk.
Certainly I'm not wanting to tangle with my home insurance over it!
I'll check those kits out though, thanks. I don't intend to do this at anything above hobby level so lightweight stuff should do me.
As for technique I have been watching Paul brodies videos obsessively, I'm hoping some of his knowledge might soak in?!
Just need to be prepared to make some ugly mistakes I guess.