Welding Architectural Bronze???

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I had a client contact me today wanting an "architectural bronze" hand rail welded. Any ever welded bronze?Miller TrailBlazer 251Miller HF-250-1Miller MaxStar 150 STLHyperTherm PowerMax 380 plasmaLincoln PowerMig 180Millermatic 252Miller Diversion 180
Reply:I did a lot of general contracting, and many times products could be bought with different finishes on them,not saying it is or is not bronze,  but it may be cast aluminum or  extrusion that is colored finish on it,  I would make sure you know what your base metal is and if it is a "finish" on it how will you refinish it,  even if it is bronze or brass,  one most likely will need to treated it to put a patina back on it,  I have bronzed and hard soldered some in the past, but it was for my self and I was the only critic,   the problem is most filler material is nearly at the melting point of the bronze or some of the metals in the bronze and it can be touchy but all I have ever used was torch, I am sure others and with tig  and or other process  there are much better ways now than what I used, http://www.weldability-sif.com/media...pper_brass.pdfhttp://www.macmetals.com/blog/weldin.../#.U0YnSlJOX5ohttp://www.macmetals.com/blog/weldin.../#.U0YnlFJOX5oLast edited by Farmerboy; 04-10-2014 at 01:10 AM.
Reply:This page describes architectural bronze as 385 alloy, and says it is not recommended to weld it.  3% lead, so you know right there it is not good for welding.  Worse, it is 40% zinc!   The zinc will just boil off, due to its low boiling temperature.http://www.anchorbronze.com/c38500.htmBut who knows what alloy it really is?Soldering would be safer, I suspect.Richard Originally Posted by waginI had a client contact me today wanting an "architectural bronze" hand rail welded. Any ever welded bronze?
Reply:naval brass is what your looking forhttp://www.anchorbronze.com/464navalbrass.htmbe very careful to use the correct filler wire as it will be apparent if you don't,there are cap materials that are made from naval bronze which are pretty nice.be fair warned its expensive, charge $120 per hour for working with this material at least then you can take your time and get less per hour for checking measurements 5-6 timesnothing worse than cutting into a piece of material that costs more than the labour and making a mistake.Last edited by Bryce masuk; 04-10-2014 at 02:30 AM.http://www.forgingtechnology.com/
Reply:as with everything said above, i will add color matching will be near impossibleVantage 500's LN-25's, VI-400's, cobramatics, Miller migs, synch 350 LX, Powcon inverters, XMT's, 250 Ton Acurrpress 12' brake, 1/4" 10' Atlantic shear,Koikie plasma table W/ esab plasmas. marvel & hyd-mech saws, pirrana & metal muncher punches.
Reply:if you use the exact same filler wire it should be good but it can be a bit off,if you polish the rail with a spindle grinder with a buffing wheel on the spindle, and follow the whole rail length with the polisher on a the handrail you can tape off the edge where your angle is and then polish right to the line without over stepping it,by doing this on both sides you can create really crisp lines which will make it harder to see any flaws,inside angles are twice as time consuming as outside angles and harder to perfect.I have also went one way along a bar and then went the exact opposite way with the polisher sometimes if the scratches are going in opposite directions it can make it extremely hard to see any filler color difference.http://www.forgingtechnology.com/
Reply:Thanks for all the info. I think I'll stay away from bronze, brass for now.Miller TrailBlazer 251Miller HF-250-1Miller MaxStar 150 STLHyperTherm PowerMax 380 plasmaLincoln PowerMig 180Millermatic 252Miller Diversion 180
Reply:Originally Posted by rafergusonThis page describes architectural bronze as 385 alloy, and says it is not recommended to weld it.  3% lead, so you know right there it is not good for welding.  Worse, it is 40% zinc!
Reply:Originally Posted by G-sonInteresting, copper and zinc (with a dash of lead) should make it brass, not bronze. The classic bronze is copper/tin (but there are variations). About the zinc boiling off, apparantly the tin does the same thing according to my old O/A welding handbook that happened to have a short passage about welding bronze. It basically says to use "suitable filler", a flame with slight oxygen excess (not sure about correct translation) castings needs to be preheated and cool down slowly in insulation, and that bronze becomes very soft at high temperatures so it may need to be quite well supported to not be distorted by gravity.