Bronze brazing rod

Jewelry Discussion
1

This community is great. Thank you for answering my other "newbie"
question last week.

Ready for a new one?

My question is, could I use bronze rod that is for brazing to do
small castings? I have a bunch of bronze rod that is normally used as
a filler metal in brazing/welding. It has no flux on it and I believe
most/all bronze brazing rods are silicone based. So if I’m doing
non-critical castings would I make snips of this bronze rod and melt
it for some simple Delft Clay casting?

Also, if I need to do some soldering on these castings afterwords,
would that be an issue? I’m pretty sure even if I use this bronze rod
the melting temperature of my solders will be lower than this bronze.

All of my local jewerly supplies have no bronze casting grain and I
don’t see the point of buying and shipping bronze if I can use up the
tons of bronze rod I already have from my other hobby. (welding
motorcycle frames/parts)

thanks,
Rick

2

There are several compositions of “brazing rod”. If it is truly
brazing rod then it is a copper zinc Brass alloy not bronze. The
silicon bronze rods are normally used for TIG welding not brazing,
they have a much higher melting temperature than a brazing rod.

So if I'm doing non-critical castings would I make snips of this
bronze rod and melt it for some simple Delft Clay casting?

You could probably cast either one but watch out for the zinc vapor
from brazing rod.

Also, if I need to do some soldering on these castings afterwords,
would that be an issue? I'm pretty sure even if I use this bronze
rod the melting temperature of my solders will be lower than this
bronze.

It will be the same as soldering on brass if it is brazing rod

James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts