I’ve finally got my hands on a brazing torch and have been sticking pieces of metal together. My friend and frame builder, Corey Thompson (who needs a website) showed me a few things about the practice a few days ago, and he gave me free reign in his shop yesterday while he was at work. I didn’t break anything, make anything explode more than it should, or set anything on fire for very long. I also came to several conclusions about brazing.
Brazing is enormous amounts of fun, it will take practice to get the techniques and movements down correctly to be fast, efficient and methodical about it, however, at my experience level (a semi-newbie) it is possible to create nice looking joints. The actual metal-work; the filing and hand shaping of all of the joints and the finishing and removing all the brazing material that you don’t want, that is an artistry that I haven’t fully acquired yet.
My wacky design concept is actually coming alive, which is pretty neat to witness and create.
The tabs. Part of a strip of 5/8" x .080 creates the tab. The end of the tube gets a slot cut in it, and then the ends shaped to facilitate the brazing and later shaping of them.
The finished product. All of the excess tab is removed, leaving a round washer like bit attached to the tube by about 1/2" inside the slot.
Lining up the struts for mitering. This miter was tricky to get the angles correct and centered. The other side was trickier to get the angles correct and centered and have it butt into the rack platform at the exact same place.
The two sides attached. It's starting to take shape and become solid.
A closeup of one of the cleaned up joints. The goldish looking fillet is the brass brazing material.
Your comment regarding the “actual” metal-work reminded me of an old welding instructor, who said:
“to learn to weld, you must learn grind.”
The same is true of brazing, I think, and by these photos you certainly seem more well on your way to mastery than you admit (not by this am I surprised). Speaking as someone with a great deal of formal fabrication training but very little talent for it, and also as someone who recently built a very similar but infinitely more crude rack for his own bike, I must say that I am impressed by your canny skill and clever design. And delighted by the latter. Good show.