# Home made jones bar/first fillet brazing attempt



## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

I was looking for a project that would let me try fillet brazing, so I thought I'd try to make some jones H-bar knock offs. I've started to clean them up, here's a photo of them before clean up. My girlfriend and I brazed them up together. Yeah, the brazes are ugly, we're still learning.

Having a heck of a time chipping off some of burnt flux. Any suggestions on which tools to use for flux removal and fillet finishing? Filing the inner part at the top is tricky! I've found a round file works ok in there.

The hardest part was making a jig to hold things in place while I brazed them! Angle iron to the rescue. 

In hindsight we should have put flux on the 1" shim in the middle.


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## j-ro (Feb 21, 2009)

looks great! soak the bars in a tub of water to loosen/disolve the flux


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## Vlad (Feb 7, 2004)

That's quite the project with the girlfriend. Very cool.


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## unterhausen (Sep 28, 2008)

you want boiling water for that kind of flux


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## C Dunlop (Sep 26, 2008)

Cool project. 

But... at hope these are going on a town bike at the very most. I mean, it's your decision but as you say you still have quite a way to learn how to braze properly and bars do have the job of seperating your face from your stem.


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

C Dunlop said:


> Cool project.
> 
> But... at hope these are going on a town bike at the very most. I mean, it's your decision but as you say you still have quite a way to learn how to braze properly and bars do have the job of seperating your face from your stem.


Thanks!

Yeah, I hear you. I'm going to probably stick these on my commuter to try them out, but I probably wont use them much. The main goal here was to practice brazing.  My original plan was to make about 5 of these, and see how I progressed with them. Need to buy some more tubes first!

Constructive criticism would be great. Or non constructive criticism. I have thick skin.


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## Live Wire (Aug 27, 2007)

1) Bars are definitely not the place to have your first attempts at brazing. You've still got a ways to go with heat control, and how do you know it has good penetration?
That brings me to-
2) The best thing you can do with this attempt is to put one of the grip sections in your vise and see what it takes to break the bar. 
Post up pics when you're done!


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## Walt (Jan 23, 2004)

*+1*

I am far from a fillet expert, but if I were you, I'd make a BUNCH of practice joints and break them, or cut them up and see where the brass went, and where it didn't. You can knock out all your teeth on a townie just like on a mountain bike.

Steel is cheap, dentists are expensive.

-Walt



Live Wire said:


> 1) Bars are definitely not the place to have your first attempts at brazing. You've still got a ways to go with heat control, and how do you know it has good penetration?
> That brings me to-
> 2) The best thing you can do with this attempt is to put one of the grip sections in your vise and see what it takes to break the bar.
> Post up pics when you're done!


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## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

Walt said:


> I am far from a fillet expert, but if I were you, I'd make a BUNCH of practice joints and break them, or cut them up and see where the brass went, and where it didn't. You can knock out all your teeth on a townie just like on a mountain bike.
> 
> Steel is cheap, dentists are expensive.
> 
> -Walt


That is what I did. I made dozens of practice joins with scrap tubing and tried breaking them before I actually made anything. Using short pieces is good as you can easily see the inside of the join and how much penetration you are getting and/or how hot the tubing got (or did not get).

Then my first "products" were non-critical items that would not matter much if they broke.

Even after I started brazing "for real" I would do 2-3 practice joins a day. The more you do it, the better you get.


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## dbohemian (Mar 25, 2007)

I took a close look at that and I would say not to even ride it on your commuter. It is quite poor but I don't mean that as an insult just that it is hard to learn without input from someone who can show you the ropes.

Try to hunt someone down who can give you a little feedback. I have taught people who have never brazed or held a torch in their lives to do a much superior job in a 4 hour session. It will remove a ton of frustration and build a safer product.


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

dbohemian said:


> I took a close look at that and I would say not to even ride it on your commuter. It is quite poor but I don't mean that as an insult just that it is hard to learn without input from someone who can show you the ropes.
> 
> Try to hunt someone down who can give you a little feedback. I have taught people who have never brazed or held a torch in their lives to do a much superior job in a 4 hour session. It will remove a ton of frustration and build a safer product.


Thanks for the feedback everyone.

No prob, I don't take it as an insult at all. It was literally my first time fillet brazing, I would be surprised if I got it the first time around. 

I'm planning on taking college course on O/A welding/brazing in the winter, so that should help some w.r.t. brazing skill. I also know a bike builder a few hours away I might be able to bug at some point....

For what it's worth, I tried to break these this morning. I grabbed the two ends and tried to bend them first towards each other, and then away from each other. I'm fairly strong, and I managed to flex middle bar and the brazes help. It was nice to see they have some strength to them.

Could you give me some feedback beyond "quite poor"? My own diagnosis of what I did wrong is:

* brass distribution along the joint was uneven. In some spots heavy, others too thin.
* I probably cooked the brass in a few spots. My bad. Also, I managed to deposit some globs away tube intersection, which makes for annoying cleanup and wasted brass
* I probably used too much heat in some spots and did unfortunate things to the brass

Ps: I get it, I get it, I wont use the bars. That wasn't really the point in the first place.


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## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

bobbotron said:


> Thanks for the feedback everyone.
> 
> No prob, I don't take it as an insult at all. It was literally my first time fillet brazing, I would be surprised if I got it the first time around.
> 
> ...


Destruction testing needs to be more than that. If you can flex/break it in hand it is WAY too weak. Clamp one end in a bench vice, put a 6-8 foot cheater bar on the other and REALLY reef on it. The tubing should yield before the join.

From what I can see in the pic, the joins are generally too "cold." You melted the brass onto the tubes rather than getting everything up to temp. A common issue for a beginner and tough to learn without instruction.

Here is a video I made of Steve Garro doing a fillet


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

shiggy said:


> Destruction testing needs to be more than that. If you can flex/break it in hand it is WAY to weak. Clamp one end in a bench vice, put a 6-8 foot cheater bar on the other and REALLY reef on it. The tubing should yield before the join.
> 
> From what I can see in the pic, the joins are generally too "cold." You melted the brass onto the tubes rather than getting everything up to temp. A common issue for a beginner and tough to learn without instruction.
> 
> Here is a video I made of Steve Garro doing a fillet


Ah, I didn't mean the brazed joints are flexing. I can flex the middle bar by applying a great deal of force to the two end bars. It isn't flexing at the joints, it bows in in the middle, as the whole tube is bending. I got to the point where it felt like I could actually bend the middle tube if I kept at it.

Good to know re the joins. Here I was worried about cooking the tubes.

Interesting video, thank you! It's a little difficult to see what's going on at times, but that's extremely helpful.


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## zipzit (Aug 3, 2005)

bobbotron said:


> I'm planning on taking college course on O/A welding/brazing in the winter, so that should help some w.r.t. brazing skill.


Hmmm.. I'm doing that very thing right now (taking college course) based on input from this forum, and it's kinda/sorta a waste of time.

1) in the course we do oxy/acetylene welding and cutting and 2) Stick / arc welding. In the whole class, we discuss brazing for ten minutes, if that.

Plus: You get a confidence working with the torch and the heat. I made huge gains in my quality when I realized the heat isn't going to directly hurt you. You can get your face pretty close to your work. You get to see how to safely manage your equipment. You get to see how and why when you tack weld. You get to burn up lots of metal. You get to use large shears to make lots of practice metal... You get to learn the whys on each of the types of arc rod.

Negative: There is a lot of hours in the class that don't take you where you may want to go. In my case, I have some arc welding projects that I want to do to support my habits... Your mileage may vary. Frankly my instructor hasn't been much help. The school has some great jig / fixtures / benders and tooling, but they won't let any students use it. At least not that I could see... Heck yeah, I asked!

There was one thing in the class that was extraordinary.. we watched lots of movies. The best by far were the two movies that came from the Wall Mountain Company (http://www.weldingvideos.com/about.html I learned more from watching Steve Bleile, the guy with the mustache, in the videos for ten minutes, than I did from four hours of listening / talking to my instructor. Those videos really told you how to manage the puddle unlike anything else out there, including me doing lots of reading up on welding how-to's in different online forums.

In hindsight (and for what the class is costing me), I think I'd much rather buy those videos and teach myself. Note: In my class I was way ahead of the rest of the folks for oxy/acetlyene welding penetration and smoothness of weld bead. The only thing that got me in that direction was the ten minute portion of the video that discussed the weld bead. That was the same ten minutes that the instructor decided to tell old welding stories from his past.. sigh. talking right over the video...

I guess lots depends on how you learn a new skill, I'm not a rookie at teaching myself new things.. Your mileage may vary...

zip...


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

Thanks for that! Yeah, I worry this may be the case with this course as well. I think I will still take it though, learning how to do more than braze with a O/A setup. Learning how to cut and general setup/safety would be great. The course I'm looking to take is solely on O/A, I'm not sure how much of that is devoted to brazing...

Good stuff about those welding videos! I might pick up the O/A welding one.



zipzit said:


> Hmmm.. I'm doing that very thing right now (taking college course) based on input from this forum, and it's kinda/sorta a waste of time.
> 
> 1) in the course we do oxy/acetylene welding and cutting and 2) Stick / arc welding. In the whole class, we discuss brazing for ten minutes, if that.
> 
> ...


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## pvd (Jan 4, 2006)

zipzit said:


> I'm doing that very thing right now (taking college course) based on input from this forum, and it's kinda/sorta a waste of time.


I think that it is good to do this course, typically refered to as Welding 1.

I took this course at Wentworth Institute in Boston and it was fantastic. The principles that you learn in the course are not directly what you need for brizing specifically but for welding as a whole. You start with flame and stick for a reason. Then you can go off to take MIG and TIG courses. While I have gas welded once and only stick welded twice since the course, I use the concepts everytime I weld.

Where you take the course is probably most important. I took mine at Wentworth, an elite industrial college. They know their stuff. A local comunity college won't be at that level, but I'm sure that some are much better than others.

It's important to remember that while braizing is practiced in the real world from time to time, 99.99% of the time you do legitamate welding for jobs. Taking up student time to teach something as simple and next to useless as braizing would be a real disservice.


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## coconinocycles (Sep 23, 2006)

*maybe someday i'll be good enough at brazing to make H-bars..........*

but for now this will have to do! i guess i'll keep practicing.........


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

pvd said:


> I think that it is good to do this course, typically refered to as Welding 1.
> 
> I took this course at Wentworth Institute in Boston and it was fantastic. The principles that you learn in the course are not directly what you need for brizing specifically but for welding as a whole. You start with flame and stick for a reason. Then you can go off to take MIG and TIG courses. While I have gas welded once and only stick welded twice since the course, I use the concepts everytime I weld.
> 
> ...


This is the course I'm considering taking: http://xweb.algonquincollege.com/courseDetail.aspx?id=WEL6002



> This course covers basic oxy-acetylene welding, brazing, and cutting techniques. The student learns how to operate welding and cutting equipment, how to handle and store compressed gas cylinders, and install regulators, hoses and torches incorporating all safety features and precautions. On completion of the safety orientation, the student is able to set up and operate the welding equipment to obtain various types of flames, weld 16-gauge material in various joint configurations i.e butt, lap, fillet, etc., all in the flat position, and set up and operate a cutting torch so that a cut may be made to a given tolerance or given shape.


I think the college system is different here in Canada. Algonquin is nothing special, but I think it'll be good.


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## j-ro (Feb 21, 2009)

coconinocycles said:


> but for now this will have to do! i guess i'll keep practicing.........


Showoff! (droooooooolllll)


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

So, I wanted to give an update to this. I took a steel hammer to these yesterday morning. Really railed on them, and put some good dents in the tubing. The joints held no problem.

Next step is going to the community bike shop, and using their vice (vise?) and breaker bar to really torque the crap out of them, and see what breaks first.


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## Francis Buxton (Apr 2, 2004)

Break one, and cut the other open to see what kind of penetration you got.


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

I ended up breaking both halves of it. The shop vise appeared to be on it's last legs - initial breaking attempts showed that I was going to rip the vise off the bench long before I was going to bend the bars. Next I found our shop breaker bars. Lodging one end of the bar on the ground, and pushing on the other end, you could see the middle point flexing significantly. It was a poor setup though - if it started to go and how much force I was putting into it to flex it (I weigh 200 pounds), there was a good chance I would launch myself into the ground or impale myself with a bar.

We ended up puttting a breaker bar on each end, one person stood on the longer portion, and I took the smaller one and pushed it towards the floor. It took some doing, the tube started to buckle and then the braze broke. I knew the braze would probably break first - it was great to see how much force it took to break it. The second side broke a little easier, probably was weakened by the beating it took and I don't think the fillets were as nice on that side. Also, I think the way we set up the breaker bars, it greatly enhanced the likelyhood of it breaking along the joint, as the bar was pretty much flush with the joint.

Anyway, here's a photo of the break. I'm going to make 4 more test fillets this weekend, more testing.....


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## Schmitty (Sep 7, 2008)

Yeah, more pactice.. that's no good.

I've destroyed every joint on 6 frames of mine, and I've never had a joint come apart... the tubes fail first 1-3" back from the weld.

-Schmitty-


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## rocwandrer (Oct 19, 2008)

bobbotron said:


> I ended up breaking both halves of it. The shop vise appeared to be on it's last legs - initial breaking attempts showed that I was going to rip the vise off the bench long before I was going to bend the bars. Next I found our shop breaker bars. Lodging one end of the bar on the ground, and pushing on the other end, you could see the middle point flexing significantly. It was a poor setup though - if it started to go and how much force I was putting into it to flex it (I weigh 200 pounds), there was a good chance I would launch myself into the ground or impale myself with a bar.
> 
> We ended up puttting a breaker bar on each end, one person stood on the longer portion, and I took the smaller one and pushed it towards the floor. It took some doing, the tube started to buckle and then the braze broke. I knew the braze would probably break first - it was great to see how much force it took to break it. The second side broke a little easier, probably was weakened by the beating it took and I don't think the fillets were as nice on that side. Also, I think the way we set up the breaker bars, it greatly enhanced the likelyhood of it breaking along the joint, as the bar was pretty much flush with the joint.
> 
> Anyway, here's a photo of the break. I'm going to make 4 more test fillets this weekend, more testing.....


Random (hopefully helpful) thoughts:

too much heat in the filler, not enough heat in the steel.

not enough flux or not clean enough on the inside of the mitered tube.

that burnt crap flux is from momentarily overheating the flux, but that doesn't necessarily mean you had enough heat in the joint at the right time.

not enough filler material. You want too much filler in some places, and a lot too much in others when you start out, never not enough somewhere like you have there.

don't beat on the tubes with a hammer before destroying. use a tube clamp in your vice. use a pipe over the tube to be torqued on. give the tube every chance to hold up and still get failure in the tube, not the joint. if you pre-damage the tube and get failure in the tube, you didn't test the capacity of the joint properly.


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

Thanks for the comments, I really appreciate it! It's great to get feedback like this.

I think I was so concerned with cooking the tubes, I'm not getting them hot enough. I think this also has to do with the torch settings - I think we had the regulators at 5 PSI acetylene, 13 PSI oxygen.. I think I burnt the flux moving the torch to close to the tube, trying to heat up the brass.

I've found it difficult to melt the brass just enough to make it stick to the tube and not start blowing it away from the joint at the same time. I'm sure this is indicative of something, I'm not sure what yet... 

I made two more practice fillets this weekend, they're a little nicer looking (I think) than the fillets on these bars. Still not there yet, but better. I'll post some photos of them some time.

Thanks for the comments!



rocwandrer said:


> Random (hopefully helpful) thoughts:
> 
> too much heat in the filler, not enough heat in the steel.
> 
> ...


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## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

bobbotron said:


> Thanks for the comments, I really appreciate it! It's great to get feedback like this.
> 
> I think I was so concerned with cooking the tubes, I'm not getting them hot enough. I think this also has to do with the torch settings - I think we had the regulators at 5 PSI acetylene, 13 PSI oxygen.. I think I burnt the flux moving the torch to close to the tube, trying to heat up the brass.
> 
> ...


You do not heat the brass with the torch, you heat the tubes and the when the tubes are hot enough the brass melts and sticks to the steel.


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

shiggy said:


> You do not heat the brass with the torch, you heat the tubes and the when the tubes are hot enough the brass melts and sticks to the steel.


Egads.

Funny, I read somewhere that you have to help out the melting of the brass with the flame.

I think for my next test braze I'm going to try to get the steel a notch or two (or three) hotter than I have been and see how that effects the process.


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## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

bobbotron said:


> Egads.
> 
> Funny, I read somewhere that you have to help out the melting of the brass with the flame.
> 
> I think for my next test braze I'm going to try to get the steel a notch or two (or three) hotter than I have been and see how that effects the process.


"Help out" are the key words. Your joins look like it was mostly the flame that melted the rod. The steel has to be hot enough for the brass to flow and bond.


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## rocwandrer (Oct 19, 2008)

bobbotron said:


> Egads.
> 
> Funny, I read somewhere that you have to help out the melting of the brass with the flame.
> 
> I think for my next test braze I'm going to try to get the steel a notch or two (or three) hotter than I have been and see how that effects the process.


I will occasionally tip the rod into the flame a bit, but that is horrible advice to a novice still learning what to look for....

Are you using separate flux, or flux coated rods? Separate flux was a big help to my learning curve. Further up the learning curve from you, there is benefit to less flux to make it easier to control the "puddle." In your part of the learning curve (and for the next few practice joints), I suggest plastering the area a ways beyond the joint with tons of flux. One reason is that a flux starved joint "seems" to require more heat than a properly fluxed joint, and not knowing the difference, it is easier to err on the side of too much flux at very first.

Without even making a joint, try covering part of a tube with flux, heating it, and adding filler. try to add filler at one end (the start end) thin and wide spread, and try to draw it up to a bead at the other end of the line on the tube. never get the filler into the flame for this exercise and see how it flows. I bet the flux at the bead end is glassy, clear, and flakes off pretty easily once the joint cools.

What shade lens are you using?

what size tip? did you try a bigger tip at low pressure? try a bigger tip with a much lower torch settings (smaller flame) on some test joints. what this does is slow down the process. that is bad for a real joint, but can be good for initial practice because the heat up, over heating, flow, etc all happen slower. I do almost everything with a smith 205 tip. too big isn't ideal for everything, but works and is consistent for me at the low hours hobby level. too small a tip is good for some things and bad for others. err on the side of too big with too low a gas flow at first. control heat with angle position and distance.

set your regulator pressures independently with the torch flowing gas. when you set the oxy at 5 psi and turn the torch off, what does the regulator read? same with acetylene? sure you know how to get a stoichometric flame? try a hair rich (more actylene) from what you think is stoich, and see if it works better.... you shouldn't need 10 psi oxy with 5 psi actylene....


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

Thanks for all of the feedback, sorry I didn't reply earlier! Here are some answers, as best as I can give them...

I'm using generic flux coated brazing rods I bought from Canadian Tire. And fluxing the joint with flux from ceeway. I think the next joint I try will be with the bare brazing rods I bought from ceeway and the ceeway flux.

I'll give that practice a try....

I believe I'm using a shade 5 lens (it is possibly a shade 4, but I'm almost positive it's a 5.)

I'll have to double check the tip size, not sure off the top of my head....

I've read a bunch on how to get a neutral flame, and believe I am - I'll definitely try adding more A next time, to see how that changes things, I might have been using a little too much oxygen. :/

I did one more test braze, welding a piece of pipe to both sides of a 1 1/4" thick pipe. In hindsite, I should have made the pieces of pipe longer, so I could get more leverage to break the joint with... 

__
https://flic.kr/p/4244972222



rocwandrer said:


> I will occasionally tip the rod into the flame a bit, but that is horrible advice to a novice still learning what to look for....
> 
> Are you using separate flux, or flux coated rods? Separate flux was a big help to my learning curve. Further up the learning curve from you, there is benefit to less flux to make it easier to control the "puddle." In your part of the learning curve (and for the next few practice joints), I suggest plastering the area a ways beyond the joint with tons of flux. One reason is that a flux starved joint "seems" to require more heat than a properly fluxed joint, and not knowing the difference, it is easier to err on the side of too much flux at very first.
> 
> ...


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## rocwandrer (Oct 19, 2008)

I must be in the minority here given the rarity of shade 4 lenses, but I had shade 3 and shade 5 for a lot of years before getting shade 4, and shade 4 turned out to be just right. The shade 3 was often not enough, and the shade 5 was *always *too much.


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## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

rocwandrer said:


> I must be in the minority here given the rarity of shade 4 lenses, but I had shade 3 and shade 5 for a lot of years before getting shade 4, and shade 4 turned out to be just right. The shade 3 was often not enough, and the shade 5 was *always *too much.


I am there with you. I like a 4 but they are very hard to find, especially in the full-face I prefer.


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## rocwandrer (Oct 19, 2008)

*oops*

edit: oops, not sure what happened there....


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## larsbaby (Apr 11, 2005)

great thread - any updates on your welding projects?


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

larsbaby said:


> great thread - any updates on your welding projects?


I'm almost done the oxy-acetylene course, two more classes. I've done a lot of gas welding and brazing of sheet metal, I think the course was a great idea, I'm a lot more comfortable with the torch and my hand is getting steadier. It was cool to learn how to weld too, I don't think I would have pursued that on my own. Last night I tried brazing aluminum, which went horribly (there's a steep learning curve for it.)  I've had fun brazing some dead steel from the local bike co op into weird things, and I repaired a friend's art drying rack at the class last night (brazed a caster back on, it's weld had failed.)

No more progress on the bike or handlebars building front, I've been too busy with work and wood working projects. Hopefully I'll get back into that after my current project is done!

Here's a spider I made out of a broken axle and some spokes:


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## rocwandrer (Oct 19, 2008)

bobbotron said:


> I'm almost done the oxy-acetylene course, two more classes. I've done a lot of gas welding and brazing of sheet metal, I think the course was a great idea, I'm a lot more comfortable with the torch and my hand is getting steadier. It was cool to learn how to weld too, I don't think I would have pursued that on my own. Last night I tried brazing aluminum, which went horribly (there's a steep learning curve for it.)  I've had fun brazing some dead steel from the local bike co op into weird things, and I repaired a friend's art drying rack at the class last night (brazed a caster back on, it's weld had failed.)
> 
> No more progress on the bike or handlebars building front, I've been too busy with work and wood working projects. Hopefully I'll get back into that after my current project is done!
> 
> Here's a spider I made out of a broken axle and some spokes:


your spider has 2 extra legs..... See, we are always giving helpful input around here


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## bobbotron (Nov 28, 2007)

rocwandrer said:


> your spider has 2 extra legs..... See, we are always giving helpful input around here


Haha, most spiders don't have a nut for a head either. 

I think the crab I made is missing two legs, so maybe it evens out, or is just going to be a running theme in my bike art.



I think I'm going to shorten the legs on this one...


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