Rods

[Freddy0309]

im slowly expanding my rod collection and would like to add some brazing rods however I'm getting very confused as there seems to be loads of different choices, so can anyone recommend a general purpose one?

 

[hotrodder]

CuSi3 or CuSn6. If the place you buy from is a SIF stockist they use the trade names silcopper #968 and phosphorbronze #8 respectively. If the shop is an EWM stockist there's no silly trade names to worry about i.e. they call silicon copper TIG brazing rods CuSi3 and the phosphor bronze CuSn6 as it's copper with ~6% tin in it. SIF on the other hand usefully sell the stuff in small 1kg packs which is handy if you aren't using everyday as 5kg + packs ain't cheap

 

[Freddy0309]

So if you had to chose one over the other which would you choose? And not sure if it makes a difference but I do have an ac/dc machine?

 

[hotrodder]

If it's purely for brazing/joining sheet steel then there's little in it and i'd go with whichever is cheaper (CuSi3 usually IIRC). For welding copper alloys then ideally you use whichever is the closest match to the parent i.e. phosphor bronze castings use CuSn6 etc
Both are usually used with DCEN and while very useful for joining sheet (speed, distortion etc) be aware TIG brazing isn't even close to as versatile as oxyfuel... the wires melt at a higher temp and don't wet out or flow nearly as much as what happens with oxyfuel

 

[Freddy0309]

I've never done any brazing at all before, but want to try. It will be for steel not copper alloy so will have a search now to see which one I can get cheapest. But thanks for the explanation it's helped my understanding a lot

 

[Chris Stevens]

For all round use I would suggest getting some No8..................seems to work very well, but its not cheap.