Brazing filler metal (BFM) is available in a variety of different forms, shapes and sizes, such as wire, rod, paste, sheet, foil, preforms and cladding. 

Most of us have heard someone complaining, “There’s a lack of critical thinking here.” But what do they usually really mean? If we stop for a moment, perhaps we will realize that it often means, “I disagree with your conclusion.” But does that mean that the thought processes used were inadequate?

Temperature uniformity within a furnace can be defined as: “a uniform temperature set to operate within a specific tolerance band to create conditions under which a final uniform resulting metallurgy will be accomplished in the treated component.”

A common way to create brazing filler metal (BFM) powder is by melting the raw metallic ingredients for the BFM in a large melting pot using induction heating and then pouring that alloyed liquid metal through a specialized atomization nozzle.

For those of us who would like to gain high-level competence in any profession, it’s critical to explore many of the branches of the tree of knowledge. If you are helping others solve technical problems, deep knowledge in the advertised subject matter is required. Communication skills serve as one example of a crucial additional area of required expertise.

Hardness testing determines the success of the heat-treatment procedure and the material’s response to that heat treatment.

Nickel-brazing is unique in the brazing world in that each of the nickel-based brazing filler metals (BFMs) available for use today depends on the use of temperature-lowering ingredients (i.e., temperature-depressants) such as boron, phosphorus and/or silicon to enable the BFM’s usefulness for joining stainless steels and many other superalloys for critical aerospace applications.  

Safety in the workplace regarding heat treatment connects each and every person who works in either a captive or a commercial shop. We all have an obligation to one another to minimize the risk of accidents and injuries (no matter how minimal or extensive that injury might be).

Since people generally come to failure analysts when they can’t figure things out for themselves, it’s important to have access to reliable facts, know how to recognize them and be able to explain to people why our facts are indeed of the reliable kind!

Too many companies still use built-in “holds” when heating up parts in their brazing furnaces. I recently asked the production manager at an aerospace company, “Why do your brazing personnel have those temperature holds in their furnace brazing cycles?”