Howdy! I have a pretty nice '31 Model A Roadster. The car has received a frame-off restoration at an unknown time, juice brakes, a '39 tranny, and a Borg Warner overdrive. I'm trying to piece together clues at what time this restoration might have taken place. The roadster body has once been channeled, as the rear wheel wells show. What caught my eye is that a lot of body panels have been brass brazed. I Know that's not done anymore today, but I wonder at what time that would have been rather common? Does anybody know and, if so, why they preferred brazing over torch welding? Thanks!
I;ve done some brass brazing in the past,but I noticed that paint eventually turns loose,at least that's what it has done on my old '65 truck I did in the 80's. HRP
Used brass in the factory back in the 80's. The rod had flux on it already and the assembly line worker had several spots to do on each body.
My 31' frame had a lot of brazing done to it also. Back then that was really the only thing they had to weld with. I still do it today. Couldn't say when it was done because it's still a common thing. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The problem with brazing is when the flux doesn't get cleaned off. I've seen it last 40 years without showing itself. I've also seen it bubble the paint in less than a year. When I was an apprentice in a bodyshop in the mid 80's, the old timers still brazed a lot, and the younger bodymen were MIG welding everything. I believe it was used a lot simply because it is easier than gas welding, as it flows out nicely with less heat.
Brazing was fairly common in the '40s and '50s, possibly much earlier and later as well. I think the main appeal is the lower temps at which the brass flows, speed of brazing and ability to close gaps easier. Lots of factory panel joints were brazed on cars in the '50s, in particular, and then leaded if need be.
As already stated, brazing in body shops was still quite common into the 80's. It wasn't a bad method either, except for the bonding issue with paint or filler. Probably have to find some other way to date your build. Can you determine what type paint is on it?
Take a look at a stock model T oil pan. Lots of brass used there. Teens and twenties. I was brazing in a body shop in the '60's so your work has a wide range of time possibilities.
Doesn't surprise me...... Properly prepped and covered, the paint won't let loose on brazing repairs.
Years ago before having mig and resistance spot welders in my shop I used to do plug welds on new body panels with low-temp bronze alloy. It worked very well and actually looked like a factory spot welding job. Properly cleaned and preped, paint will stay on them for as long as any other body part. Dave.
Two reasons it was used a lot was that it took less heat and hand worked a lot easier than gas welding with steel rod. The three main reasons guys don't like it are that the flux contaminates the paint just as the flux on lead work does if you don't take the time to clean it off, it can work harden pretty easy if there is any flexing in the area it is used on, You almost always have to remove it if you tig, mig or gas weld the panel. You have to remember that when that work was done on that body guys often didn't have a lot to work with an many didn't have a lot of skills we take for granted now and brass rod was real easy to work with at the time and you could borrow your uncles's torch and buy a hand full or brass rod and a can of flux and be in business.
I'v used brazing a lot in the 70s/80s , never had any paint problems . I never knew there was a problem with paint coming off until somebody told me sometime in the 90s. I did take the time to clean all of the repaired areas up and primer right away . I still use it sometimes instead of my wire feed , depends on what i am doing . ___Good thing somebody never told me it was wrong back them , i could have had all kinds of problems with paint L.O.L.____JIM
I still braze. It's a great way to bond metal when used properly. It was probably the most common form of body repair using a torch all the way into the '80s. It required a lot less heat than gas welding so it was a great benefit when replacing body panels....less warpage. I knew a guy whose father bought a nearly new '37 Chevy pickup from the railroad that got stuck on the tracks in the yard and totaled. He bought another totaled pickup to get the back half of the frame, pulled the front half of the '37 around till it was straight, cut the back half of the frame off and replaced with the back half from the junk yard pickup. He butted the two frames together. Added a boxing plate on the inside to span the splice and brazed it all together. The last I heard the truck was still on the road in the mid '90's.
Yes...Used to be pretty common to repair cast iron with brass. I watched my Dad braze up cracks in more than one engine block when I was a kid.
I braze steel parts a lot. Birdcage Maser frame is made out of steel tube with all joints brazed. It is very strong and the bronze rod material melts at a lower temp than steel, so there is less distortion in the fabrication. Strength comes with built up fillet at the joint, so plenty of filler bronze contact. Flux removal is a bitch, but best done with water and a steel brush as soon as work is cool. I find it a satisfying process and it looks beautiful when done.
X2 on the above post. Back in the day steel panels were either brazed or welded. The hot ticket was hammer welding - gas weld a tiny spot and use a hammer and dolly to flatten the weld while it was still hot. That took greater skill and was time consming. Brazing can be done with less chance of heat distortion. A problem with braze is that you can end up with galvanic action that corrodes the steel. Good cleaning and modern primers and top coats probably work better in this regard.
Most of us "older" guys probably did our first body work using brazing rod. The typical welding supply store rod had enough flux on it that you could braze a rusty panel and have it stick. When brazing clean metal you could scrape off 75% of the flux and it would work fine. More recently I've used silicon bronze rod with a tig torch and no flux, makes for a nice joint at low temperature.
I TIG weld using silicon bronze rod sometimes. High end German car makers still do, at times. Looks sorts like brazing but not so yellow. NO FLUX involved. No adhesion issues. Flows out really nice and at low temps compared to regular TIG rod.
Almost all British race car frames were fabricated using nickel silver brazing up thru the 80s. Even suspension parts like tubular A frames. Works well on thin metal other than a bitch to clean the flux.
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