Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi Guys and Gals, I'm having some trouble on this one. I'm building some placard stands out of 1/4" square bar and I need to braze or weld 1/16 wire to it as tabs to hold the placard in. I've been trying to tig braze some stainless or mild steel welding rod, but both seem to have about the same melting point as the braze. I can't puddle the brazing rod without melting the steel rod. Also, the heat's not enough to puddle the bar. I'm running 25-40 amps DC, straight Argon. Any ideas or better methods? Thanks.

Maybe preheat the square bar, then speed tack it (no filler), hit it with high amps quick.

No need to braze it in or use filler. Just use the rod itself like filler. puddle the base metal shove your 1/16 rod in puddle like using it as filler. Leave rod in puddle as you taper out. Then trim rod to desired length.

dirtmidget33 wrote:No need to braze it in or use filler. Just use the rod itself like filler. puddle the base metal shove your 1/16 rod in puddle like using it as filler. Leave rod in puddle as you taper out. Then trim rod to desired length.

Like playing with a hot glue gun is what I envisioned as I was reading this.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about this is 3/32 to 3/8. Used as rain deer tails on Xmas thing. You can pick up the whole display holding on to this tail and it weighs 35pounds. Your bead can be smaller than this, I pushed rod into puddle a little to much on this one. For this application it was fine and is a lot smaller then it looks in the blown up close up too. Remember that's only a 3/32 rod

dirtmidget33 wrote:No need to braze it in or use filler. Just use the rod itself like filler. puddle the base metal shove your 1/16 rod in puddle like using it as filler. Leave rod in puddle as you taper out. Then trim rod to desired length.

I've done this many times. It works well.

Thanks for your help guys. I tried each of your methods with mixed results. I am still learning. I got them to stick with the speed tacks, but gave when I tested adjustability. The placards are going in later by someone else. The pool and dip method worked for the first end, but I had to bend it around and do the same to the other end. That proved very tedious and I had many failures. I ended up giving up on wire and cut some 16 ga strips and rosette welding to a pre-placed tack on the square bar. Again, thanks so much for the ideas. I'll keep those in my toolbox for when I get better with the small stuff.