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Andy McCoy has been building drag racing door cars for over 25 years and teaches you his tips on how he welds with silicon bronze.
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If you have any welding questions leave them in the comments below
Where do you start when welding silicon bronze?
I can’t stress to you enough how important it is to start with clean metal surfaces. If you get into dirty metal it will start to pop and spit and throw back at you. Yes, sometimes you've got to throw more rod in there and really lay it down. Once you get through that, grind it and clean it up. This gives you a base to come back over and weld to but you have to watch your feed.
Equipment and settings for welding silicon bronze
I leave my welder at 150, set my gas at 21, and I run a 2% thoriated tungsten. I have a gas lens on the end of my torch. What the lens does is it diffuses the gas as it comes out so that when I'm zap tacking, the gas diffuses around it and cools the weld really quickly. Cooling that weld is of course important to keep the metal from warping.
It’s important to note that while I have my welder at 150 I am not pressing the pedal all the way down. I'm only going down about half the pedal. This is to keep the heat lower and out of the metal. You may have to lower your welder down to 100 if you are really hitting the pedal hard. It’s a personal decision based on how comfortable you are with your welder. I prefer to use my pedal as a sort of regulator to keep the heat build up down.
Silicon bronze welding rod
I don’t feed my silicon bronze rod into the weld area like you normally would when TIG welding. I keep the rod laid down where I want the weld and move my torch across it and “zap tack” across the desired length of the weld. If you blow out a hole in the metal just feed the rod in like you would when regularly welding.
How do you avoid warping the metal when you are welding silicon bronze?
I weld about ¾ of an inch in one area and then move away from that hot area and over to a cooler area and lay down another ¾ of an inch weld. This gives the first weld time to cool down without warping the metal. I keep moving my work area like this until I cover the whole area. I also use my air hose to blow air on the area to keep it cool. If the area you are welding has radiuses or bends in the metal you can go longer distances with your weld. The bend in the metal helps prevent warping since the brakes in the metal give strength and resist warping.
What about metals of different thicknesses?
If you run into the issue of silicon bronze welding a thicker metal to a thinner metal you may wonder how to heat them without ruining the thinner metal. I bring my TIG torch more to the thicker metal. Making sure I favor the thicker metal with the torch head sends more heat where I want it and not to the thinner metal.
This should give you a good overview of welding silicon bronze. Just these few tips can give you the start you need to gain confidence with your welding skills. However, sometimes you may need more guidance. That’s exactly why I created our TIG welding course. I get right to the point about the gear, tools, and techniques I use here in the shop to weld everyday. We cover welding chromoly, aluminum, and of course we teach silicon bronze welding. If you are interested we are discounting the course for a limited time. Check out our TIG welding course today--[ Ссылка ]
