Short #53 - Brazing Steel

HVAC School - For Techs, By Techs

Bryan Orr

Careers, Business, Self-improvement, Education

4.9 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2019

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this short podcast episode, Bryan covers the unique practices of brazing steel. He also explains how it differs from brazing copper.

Brazing steel appears to be a rather uncommon practice in the HVAC industry. However, we actually do braze steel when we braze in compressors. Many compressors have copper-plated steel stubs; only the outer coating is copper, and if you burn through it, you'll reach the steel. However, steel requires a different fluxing agent than copper-to-copper or copper-to-brass brazing; you can't use a 15% silver-phosphorus rod because phosphorus doesn't react well with steel.

Instead, you will need a high-silver rod WITHOUT phosphorus when brazing steel to steel, copper, or brass. We recommend using a separate fluxing agent or flux-coated rods. However, high-silver rods are expensive and REQUIRE flux. When working with a compressor with copper-plated steel stubs, try to get all the solder off with heat.

When working with steel, you must keep in mind that it has a higher melting temperature and lower thermal conductivity. In other words, you can apply more heat to steel without it melting, but the heat doesn't transfer to steel as easily as it does to copper. You'll want to move your torch around more and pay more attention to the tip you use. Even though the thermal properties differ from copper, you're still aiming to get the steel to a dark cherry red color, about 1200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Remember, you also want to protect any other components that will come into contact with the heat. You can use a wet rag or Refrigeration Technologies WetRag, which works great as a heat-blocking putty.

Learn more about Refrigeration Technologies HERE.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a short episode of the HVC School podcast, so hopefully we weren't looking for a long episode because you are, you need to listen to a different one because this is a short one, and this is going to be an especially short one because we're
0:12.7	talking about raising steel and there's only so much you can talk about when you're talking about
0:16.5	raising steel but I do want to thank our sponsors real quick. Fieldpiece and
0:19.8	Fieldpiece.com refrigeration technologies at refriggedec
0:23.2	dot com navac global dot com carrier carrier dot com and finally last but not
0:30.0	leave speed clean and speed clean dot. I'm not saying much other than their names
0:35.8	and their web addresses here but I want you to know that these companies make this
0:39.1	podcast possible they really and truly do and so I would appreciate it if you'd support them if you'd
0:43.7	take an extra look if you take a peek at their website and when you talk to them
0:46.8	let them know you heard about them on the HVAC school podcast.
0:49.6	All right now this episode is on Brasing Steel and those of you probably know that I do a lot of work with
0:54.7	solder Weld. Sutter Weld's not a sponsor of the podcast but I've helped them with some of the development of their products
0:59.2	and they've got some cool stuff coming up by the way you're going to want to keep an eye on
1:01.9	solder weld because there's some neat
1:04.2	products that'll make your job easier coming out very soon.
1:06.9	But in the process of doing a lot of stuff with solder weld, I've kind of had to hone my message
1:12.0	on brasing, and so I've done a lot of work on
1:14.0	braising and soldering just figuring out all the details and braising steel
1:18.0	is something that we don't do very often most parts of the trade.
1:22.0	We don't do a lot of bracing of steel. Maybe we don't think we can. very often
1:23.0	often, most parts of the trade. We don't do a lot of brasing of steel.
1:24.0	Maybe we don't think we do and we are doing it a little bit more often than not.
	...

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