Aluminum Brazing Demo & Strength Test - Spoiler Alert: FAIL!

Also check out my latest video here: https://youtu.be/hOR21BpEJvw

Here are some of the tools I used in this video:
This is My Woodworking Shirt - https://amzn.to/2PaG3Er
EZ Smart Universal Edge Guide - http://amzn.to/2Dk86v8
Hitachi KM12VC 2-1/4 HP Router Kit - http://amzn.to/2DjyNQv
INCRA Mast-R-Lift II Router Lift - http://amzn.to/2GlgwFP
INCRA Table Saw Fence System - http://amzn.to/2Gg6UvK
GRR-RIPPER 3D Push Blocks - http://amzn.to/2FsDkWF
Roto-Zip Variable Speed Spiral Saw - http://amzn.to/2HoUwsK

In this video, I demonstrate joining aluminum tubing with brazing rod and test its strength compared to joints made of wood using my custom-made test fixture.

I’m going to do some trials with some aluminum tubing. I’m going to use some brazing material, use this brazing rod and a brazing torch, with some MAPP gas. Well, I don’t know if this is, maybe it’s a propane torch, but I’m using it with MAPP gas and I’m going to try joining these tubes and we’re going to try that and I’m going to do a strength test on this stuff now mind you, I am no expert at this at all. I definitely don’t claim to be, I’m just trying this out and I’m going to see how it goes and we’ll learn together how it goes.

OK, so we’re ready to try joining these two pieces here. We’re going to use this brazing rod. Just real quick, here on this setup, I’ve got this all clamped here. I squared it up as best I could. These two pieces have been cleaned as well as I could with sandpaper and I beveled the edge of the piece that’s running into this horizontal piece, so there’s a little space for the rod to flow into there. I’m going to try to get all four sides.

OK, so it looks like it worked pretty good. We got some good flow of material into the joints there. So I made sure to not have the flame on the rod when I was touching it to the material, so to make sure the material itself was heating the rod and not the flame.

So we’ll let this thing cool down and we’ll take it apart from the fixture here and I’ll probably do another sample just like it to have a second example to try.

And so we’re going to go ahead and do another one.

Alright, so we’ve got another one.

I decided to do one more sample. That last piece I did looked a little bit out of square, so I made sure that this one is nice and square, so I’m going to do one more. Besides, I’m getting better at this as I go.

Alright, so we’ve got a third sample or a second sample, if that second one, turns out to be unusable and I think this one’s the best looking one of them all so far. So I guess I am getting a little better at it.

I made some wooden joint samples to go along with the aluminum joint samples, so that I could compare them. These wooden samples were made from 2x4’s that I cut down to the same size as the aluminum tubing and joined the pieces using glued half lap joints.

So now I’m going to show you the star, what I consider the star of this video. That is my joint strength tester that I built here. This thing is made of all wood. I just gave it a nice paint job so it looks kind of fancy. I don’t know why I did that. I just decided to make it look cute.

But anyway, what we’ve got here is, there’s a base that everything is sitting on this base. There’s a I-beam that is, like I said, made of wood. And the I-beam has a pivot down here that the whole I-beam is pivoting, like that. So what happens is the sample that we’re going to put on here to test, it goes in between these blocks, that have these little posts on them. So that’s the vertical part of the sample goes in here and then the horizontal part, where the joint is at, is going to rest on top of the I-beam and I’m going to clamp it down with this little clamp here.

Next, we have this carriage here, OK. This carriage is going to get some weight in it and the weight is going to apply a load to the joint. Now, we’re going to move the carriage along the length of the I-beam and you can see this window is going to show you where we’re at on the beam.

Now, in order to move the carriage so that we don’t move it too quickly, what I did is, you can see on the back here, there is a guide that goes inside of a slot inside the carriage here and that guide is going to move. It’s got a nut inside of it and the nut is riding on this threaded rod. So when I, so this threaded rod is supported by these bushings here. So when I turn the threaded rod with this crank here, I can move the carriage very slowly along the I-beam and what that does is it slowly moves the weight that is on the I-beam, which is applying the force to the joint. It moves it very slowly and we can watch as the load goes up and applies more and more force to the joint to see where it’s going to break. So enough show and tell. Let’s put this thing to work and see if it works!

Видео Aluminum Brazing Demo & Strength Test - Spoiler Alert: FAIL! канала I've Been Thinking Workshop