brazing Aluminum

Anyone over done it?
thinking of modding the 1.8t rails mounting brackets.


ta.

My soon-to-be brother in law is a metal work fabricator and I know he's very good at brazing, but I know he always says how hard aluminium is to work on.

I can ask him about it if you like?

mic_VR wrote:My soon-to-be brother in law is a metal work fabricator and I know he's very good at brazing, but I know he always says how hard aluminium is to work on.

I can ask him about it if you like?

yes please.

If i'm kiddin myself i'd rather know.

cheers.

p.s excellent family connection you've made there.

I have a mate who does things very cheap, im sure he would do it for ya

Flusted wrote:I have a mate who does things very cheap, im sure he would do it for ya

Thanks mate but it will be tricky for him unless I have the manifold and injectors shipped out to him aswell,then i'd have to pay to get it sent back plus his labour.
Most importantly tho I fancy having a go myself.

I have the horrible passat one to practice on.
If it goes horribly wrong I have a couple of exit strategies.

i think..

I just checked in the garage and I have a couple of ali brazing rods.
I'm gong to go and cut off the existing brackets now.

I think the trick is heat control, you need to be very precise and thats the tricky bit. When it gets too hot it turns yellow and warps.

I watched it on American Hotrod when they were doing the Alumatub, the were making the chassis frame rails, started out with straight lengths of aluminimum rails, heated them up to bend into shape and bluebear was getting giddy with the heat and getting them too warm, mike was going crazy at him.

Spoken to my sisters fella and he said pretty much the same as the above comments.

He said the problem is that you don't have the margin of error you get with Steel and if it does go wrong it's quite hard to fix. Getting the heat level right is key, he suggested that if you're going to try it yourself then just get some practice piece first and have a load of tries on it before touching the actually piece you want to do.

He did suggest that any good welder/metal worker might be able to help you out. If not he might be able to have a look at it for you?

As a beside, he also tells me that he's spent this entire week brazing a complete original Lotus 7 chassis, but that's steel.

mic_VR wrote:Spoken to my sisters fella and he said pretty much the same as the above comments.

He said the problem is that you don't have the margin of error you get with Steel and if it does go wrong it's quite hard to fix. Getting the heat level right is key, he suggested that if you're going to try it yourself then just get some practice piece first and have a load of tries on it before touching the actually piece you want to do.

He did suggest that any good welder/metal worker might be able to help you out. If not he might be able to have a look at it for you?

As a beside, he also tells me that he's spent this entire week brazing a complete original Lotus 7 chassis, but that's steel.

Thanks for remembering to ask.
My 1.8t rail is steel anyway.
Why would he choose brazing for that as opposed to some of the other welding techniques?
Just curious.
You should get him to sign up as our fabrication guru.

dirtytorque wrote:Thanks for remembering to ask.
My 1.8t rail is steel anyway.
Why would he choose brazing for that as opposed to some of the other welding techniques?
Just curious.
You should get him to sign up as our fabrication guru.

Not to worry, it's always interesting to have a chat with him anyway. And as it happens I asked the same question as you about the brazing.

Apparently all the original Lotus 7's were built that way, it allowed for easier construction and adjustment of the frame and chassis. The one he's been doing this week is to fix an slight mishap that the guy had. Apparently it wasn't in the best of shape.

As for signing him up, he doesn't own a computer so doubtful, but he's helping me out by doing the downpipe on my VRT (when I get round to it) and I'm sure he'd be happy to help others out if he can.

Cool.
its funny how I/people assume that everyone is on line.

Interesting stuff about the lotus.
Must be alot more time consuming brazing rather than using a mig for example.
I'd imagine brazing would be alot like tig welding,and require alot more on the part of the welder.Must be satisfying when done tho.
Good to know we gave a fabrication expert within earshot.