Good morning,
I have a need to weld small (1" X 3" or so) pieces of irregularly
shaped pieces of O2 free copper sheet preparatory to enameling at
from 1550 degrees to 1650 degrees. Brazing or soldering would
disemble in the kiln. Often, the location where I want the joint
will be almost hidden. Can you recommend a method?
Thanks for your time,
Larry Kueneman
TIG weld it, any reputable welding shop (stainless steel workshops
are a good start) shouldn’t have any trouble doing the work.
Thomas.
I’d have to try it, to see how it worked, but the laser is great for
"tacking" or fully welding components in place. They will not move
during subsequent soldering steps, which would apply to kiln temps
also.
TIG weld it, any reputable welding shop (stainless steel workshops are a good start) shouldn't have any trouble doing the work.
TIG welding copper is a pain in the a**, I do some copper TIG welding
and it is nothing like stainless or mild steel which can be done with
a lot of finesse. Copper is so thermally conductive that the whole
piece will be near the melting point and just might, the weld bead
will be large and in general I would not use TIG to try to get
jewelry quality welds on copper. I would recommend finding someone
with a laser and working out the parameters for welding it with a
laser
James Binnion
@James_Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts
360-756-6550
Larry
Copper can also be welded with an acetylene torch I saw the sculptor
Harold Belazs (or Belasz) demonstate this like it was no big deal,
but I’m sure it is not all that easy. Harold enamels over it. My
notes from the demo are not the best or complete but he tacked
together with phos copper rod but then I noted that its no good under
enamel. Next I wrote to use electrical wire or deox copper rod for
tig. You can get specialty rod and maybe some better advice at a
Welding supply.
Celeste
Since now I am curious and I had to work today I tried laser welding
copper. I had to turn up all the settings higher than even silver
and still could barely get a weld and they were very brittle even
with the argon. I was using some 18 gauge copper sheet and some
small electrical wire for filler.
So next I tried with the same materials welding with a Little Torch
on oxy- propane. I managed to get some very messy weldlike fusing on
the molten surface It was weird and very hard to control, but the
result was not brittle. Without a lot of practice you couldn’t do
much but really rough innaccurate fabrication and nothing very
small.
For small jewelry items I bet copper could be lasered or brazed with
silver or gold wire- didn’t think of it until now-might work
better(or not). But you’d have to check that the melting
temperatures of the various alloys was high enough for enameling.
Celeste