Brazing is a very important metal-joining technique that continues to grow in usage each year in many industries around the world. Most people are familiar with welding and soldering, but many are not familiar with where brazing might fit into the overall metals-joining landscape.

Solar Manufacturing shipped a vacuum heat-treating furnace to NexGen Advanced Fuel Systems, an Allied Power Group Company, based in Houston, Texas. NexGen, a gas turbine component overhaul facility, ordered the furnace to help increase capacity and reduce turnaround time for its heat-treating and brazing operations. Built specifically to heat treat land-based turbine equipment, with attention to specific cooling requirements required by NexGen’s customers, the furnace includes a Solarvac Polaris control system and a graphite hot zone that can accommodate loads up to 48 inches wide x 48 inches high x 72 inches deep. It has a maximum load weight capacity of 6,000 pounds and a maximum operating temperature of 2400°F.

Some of the brazing paste we purchased has separated, showing a layer of liquid above the brazing material in the containers.

Welcome to my part of “Technical Talk,” where we will discuss brazing, a very important metal-joining technique that continues to grow in usage each year in many industries around the world. Most people are familiar with welding and soldering, but many are not familiar with where brazing might fit into the overall metals-joining landscape.

It’s hard to believe how much has changed in the past year. When I wrote my annual April column in early March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t yet a reality in the United States.

TAV Vacuum Furnaces manufactured a vertical high-vacuum furnace for one of Asia’s leading aerospace companies. The bottom-loading furnace offers an advanced solution for heat-treatment and brazing processes and can process aerospace materials such as titanium alloys and superalloys. It has useful dimensions of 1,500 mm diameter x 2,600 mm high (59 x 102 inches) with a maximum gross charge of 5,510 pounds (2,500 kg) and a maximum operating temperature of 2192°F (1200°C).

Accurate Brazing, a full-service provider of specialized heat-treating solutions, announced its registration with the U.S. Department of State for the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) through the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls at its facility in Greenville, S.C.

Question: I was torch brazing a large-diameter copper tube into a copper fitting and built up a nice fillet on the top of the joint at my customer’s request. Someone told me that the joint I made was not a properly brazed joint but was a braze-weld instead. What did he mean? How does braze welding with a torch compare to what I thought I was doing?

An aerospace brazing company uses a high-temperature AMS-4782 nickel-based brazing filler metal (BFM) when vacuum brazing a high-temperature nickel-based honeycomb material onto the substrate to hold it in place for brazing.

TAV Vacuum Furnaces of Italy will design, build and ship two horizontal vacuum heat-treatment and brazing furnaces to a manufacturer of aircraft structural components that specializes in spherical bearing solutions. The furnaces have useful dimensions of 600 mm wide x 600 mm high x 900 mm deep (23.5 x 23.5 x 35.5 inches) with a maximum gross charge of 600 kg (1,323 pounds). They have a maximum operating temperature of 2192°F (1200°C). An AMS 2750F-compliant SCADA system provides comprehensive furnace monitoring and control. The configuration of the furnaces enables quick and easy loading of different volumes.