Brazing

[blyne]

Well I made a very foolish mistake. After fitting the butt plate on my bucks county rifle I drilled for the screws and somehow managed to get the top screw off center. At first I thought I could fix it when I countersunk the screw but it just wasnt good enough so I decided to braze the hole full and re-drill. I tried it with just a propane torch and I couldnt get the braze to stick, I'm thinking it wouldnt stick because the butt plate wasnt hot enough. I have access to an oxy acetylene torch. So if you guys could help me out, maybe give me some pointers, I would greatly appreciate it. Is there any surface preparation I need to know about, etc. Thanks in advance.
Little Brother

 

[bob1961]

have ya thought bout drilling the hole a tad bigger and pluging it and redrilling the hole..................bob

 

[Bushwhacker]

Well I made a very foolish mistake.

I'm assuming it is a brass but blate. Sure, you can braze it up. Use flux or a flux coated rod and oxy/acet torch. Been there.Done that :hmm: Good luck :redthumb:

 

[rich pierce]

color of the brazed fill-in might be quite different. Back in the day they would have riveted it, made a brass rod to fit the hole and peen it into place. They could not forge-braze a brass buttplate and they had no torches.

 

[uncrichie]

I like Bob1961's idea about wood plugging. That way you won't have to look at an off centered hole in your metal butt plate. Uncrichie...

 

[Randy]

You can plug unwanted holes in a casting like that by shaping a plug out of the same metal (perhaps a casting gate cut off the same butplate. Cut file or grind to fit, then peen it with a hammer from both sides for a tight fit. you can then flux and solder the joint to make it more solid. after final filing and polishing the area is barely noticeable. Be careful brazing a patch on brass as you can easily melt out a bigger hole if you get too hot. Not much danger of overheating a buttplate using just a propane torch.

 

[blyne]

Alright guys, thanks for the ideas. I've got a week or two to decide what I'm gonna do while I'm stuck at this place gaining a higher education :yakyak:. This is my first build and I'm happy with the way things are going (except for stupid mistakes :curse Thanks again
Little Brother

 

[Zonie]

As you discovered, a Propane torch isn't hot enough to braze brass (or bronze). Also as was mentioned, if you use a different alloy for the filler rod, the filled in area will look lighter or darker than the parent material.

You mentioned access to a OxyAcetylene torch. That will work fine. The surface should be clean and there are several different fluxes which are used with brass and bronze filler material.
These typically are not like a paste that you would use with solder, but are dry powders. The brazing rod is heated up to red heat and stuck into the powders which melt and adhere to the rod. Then when the rod is melted (bright red heat) the flux does it's thing to remove oxides etc and create a good flow of the filler rod into (not onto) the parent material.
(If you were brazing steel with a brass filler, it would be "onto").

If you don't have access to a OxyAcetylene rig, you can buy a MAP/Oxygen torch and cylinders to do the job. They are much cruder than the acetylene torch and the oxygen cylinders cost about $9 each. The MAP torch likes to eat oxygen so this is not a real cheap way to go but it beats the $130+ you can easily pay for a OxyAcetylene torch setup.