Walker,

How do you plan on soldering on the bottom? Did you have the mandrel tapered at a shop and what was your cost?

Fred
Fred Zweig
Metalsmith

Thanks for the nice comments, Fred.

I have an old roll of silver solder (56% silver/balance copper, zinc, and tin) that I used to solder on the bottom of my chasing tool cup. But I really want to try using something like harris 0, stay-silv 15, sil-fos 15. I'm told that the stay-silv and sil-fos flow better than the harris 0 but I seems lots of people use and like the harris 0. So the answer is I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Suggestions?

On the mandre: I had a 2 1/2" piece of round stock (36" long) that I picked up a junk yard a while back with the intentions of making this mandrel. I took it to a machine shop and had them cut the taper for me. They cut the 36" piece down to 20", mounted it on a lathe and cut a taper from 2 1/2" down to 1" over an 18" length. I was verbally quoted "around $60" to do it when I took it to them. However, when went to pick it up, it cost me $90....I was told because the steel was so hard it took them longer to do it. I don't even know what kind of steel it was because it came from a junk pile. I probably got screwed.....but I didn't the have quote in writing so I couldn't argue much. And actually I would still had it done if they quoted me $90 because I couldn't buy a stake like this for that amount of money.....and it will last me a lifetime.

When i got it home with it, I welded a 1 1/2" bolt on the end of the mandrel and blew a hole in a piece of channel iron. I inserted the bolt/mandrel in the hole, tight the nut on the backside and I can now place it in a vice for working.

Walker

Well I just answered my own question on what to use to braze the bottom on. I just went to my local welding supplier to buy one of the rod options listed earlier. Here's the prices I was quoted:

Harris 0 (phos copper) - $9/pound
Stay-silv 15 - $70/pound

Needess to say, I bought and am going to try the Harris 0 rods.

:)

Walker

Walker let the heat of the metal melt the Harris 0 brazing rod. If you plan on butt brazing it to the base then I recommend leaving at least an 1/8" overlap on the disk so that you can apply the rod to the bottom and allow it to creep to the base of the vase. After it is brazed you can cut and grind off the excess. You might want to exeriment with some scrap. Harris 0 does not flow as well as the silver bearing rods. Harris 5, 10, & 15. Each is more expensive due to the price of silver.

Best of luck and let us see the results.

Fred

Fred Zweig
Metalsmith

Thanks for the info Fred.

First off, let me say that I have a new Victor Superrange II torch set but have not gotten oxygen and acetylene bottles yet so it's still sitting on a shelf unused. I've been holding off on buying the bottles for the torch because I'm working out of my garage right now and I've been nervous about having oxy/ace in the garage. I've been trying to hold off on buying the bottles until I get my shop built. (That's a project scheduled for after the first of the year). I've just heard so many bad things about acetylene, I've been afraid to keep it in the garage attached to my house.

So I've been using a propane weed burner for annealing copper and have used a small MAPP gas torch to do some soldering. I bought the Harris 0 rods hoping the MAPP torch would work (but thinking deep down they probably wouldn't). I did some test brazing with the Harris 0 rods on 16 ounce copper sheet and to my surpise it worked fine. However, when I tried it on the thick copper vase and bottom, I couldn't get the copper hot enough to melt the rod. @#)(*$?!!

I guess for this first vase, I'll solder on a bottom instead of phos copper brazing it.

Walker

If you have a Victor torch you can use MAPP gas with it. The small Home Depot Mapp torches don't work on bigger stuff but you can use it with a full size torch. The temp differences between the two are not that great. You can get the Mapp in big cylinders like acetylene and it is allot safer. I was worried about having that around as well if I didn't have to. Call the manufacturer, I think you just have to get a different tip.
Anyway that's my two cents.
Mele