Custom Tools - Brazing & Welding

Ever wanted to braze your own carbide tooling?
And what about HSS?

Lots of talking early on, was in a chatty mood I guess. Start @ 5:40 and you won't miss anything important.

Thanks Alex!

[SeraphimKnight]

Skip the chit-chat?! That's the whole reason why I watch these videos mate

[matthewmontgomery]

It's a terrible joke. When you are really dirty and you take a bath, you can leave a ring of grime around the tub. The first one in is the leader, hence "ring-leader".

[HandToolRescue]

Pfff....don't worry about length. I released a 47min video, just to see what would happen, but really anything over 7 seconds is pushing it.

[oneministries]

Older cast iron bathtubs had a tendency to be cold around the edges and back in our day it was common (because it was so much work to heat up water on a wood stove) to not throw out the water from the first bather but simply heat it up with an extra pan of water. After a few bathers (normally kids in a family) there would be a waxy/greasy ring around the edge of the tub. Based on that, it’s amusing at best an appropriate for a 7 year old joke book from the early 30’s.

[Abom]

The floor is no place to keep that Avon79 sexy cream! Gotta keep it in the top drawer!

[olivialambert]

I like the longer videos. You aren't asking for 15 minutes of our time, you're granting us 15 minutes of yours. Now admittedly I'm not in your average viewer but I'm certainly happy when I see a longer video anyway.

[johnopalko]

I remember those books! One of my favorite books was called "The Boy Electrician, " or something like that. It was published in the 1940s and still in our library and contained safe and sane things you could do at home, like getting ahold of an old x-ray tube, building a high-voltage power supply, and using it to make radiographs of your hand, your sister, or whatever.
It was probably that book that finally convinced me the grownups really were out to kill us. Well, that and the A. C. Gilbert Home Atomic Energy Lab, that contained a spinthariscope, a cloud chamber, maybe a Geiger counter, and, of course, samples of radioactive materials to make it all work.

[Feralhyena]

The blue is surface impurities trapped by the flux from the cobalt matrix of the insert. You made Smalt, Cobalt Alumilite, where we get the famous Cobalt Blue.

[alaskamike]

Never skip the Chit chat Tony, you are a master at it. Truly love your work and have learned a lot from you. Many thanks and keep um coming.

[mrmudslide]

You are solidly in the #1 spot in my que. I had one teacher, once, during my formative years, that was able to deliver useful information with high-quality humor. This burned the info into my head and I still remember that Masvingo is the capitol of Zimbabwe. I LOVE Diresta, AvE, Tips from a Shipwright, Abom79, SV Seeker, Clickspring, etc., but you are #1 in my (current) book. Thanks a ton.

[Kaysler]

My favorite part is him taking the time to specifically explain to us that brazing is not welding and then proceeds to refer to it as welding several times.

Our minds are funny that way. Great video.

[dennisstephens]

I really enjoy (and learn from) your videos. But as a metallurgist, I have a few comments. "Soft solders" include the 96Tin-4Silver replacement for various Tin-Lead alloys. These alloys lack sufficient shear strength for tooling applications. "Hard solders" are brazing alloys, defined by the American Welding Society defines as having liquidus (flow) temperatures over 840F. Silvaloy 450, Safety-Silv 45 and other BAg-5 alloys are 45Ag-30Cu-25Zn and flow at ~1330F, plenty hot enough to soften high speed steels. When building carbide tipped tools with large surface area or corner/slot constraint, consider one of the trimetal shim preforms available from Lucas-Milhaupt. Silver-copper-silver (1-2-1)composites manage thermal stresses better and avoid carbide cracking. Obviously, the filler material and flux are in place before the torch is lit. Also, joint clearance is important. For the BAg-5 alloy, 0.003" per side is optimal and provides highest joint strength.

[danielroe]

'Dont eat the flux' would make a brilliant welding mask or tool box sticker.

[BillGatliff]

"Don't eat the flux" needs to be on a t-shirt.

[PeopleAlreadyDidThis]

It’s interesting to read all the “ringleader” joke theories posed here, and they’re likely proof of why people fail to understand the actions of their predecessors in history. For all the clever suggestions, the joke is certainly simple, was utterly obvious at the time, and would have been funny then. In an age when most of the population was rural, electricity and gas weren’t yet universal and were often quite rare, and therefore heating water was difficult and expensive, entire families shared bath water, which probably also had to be drawn by bucket from a well or hauled from a creek. People worked farms and “dirty jobs” industries, in the heat, got really dirty, and in many cases bathed only weekly. Where you might eventually make a dirt ring at the waterline today, the ring was “quick & dirty” then, pun intended—grime, oils, soap. So the first person in the tub, perhaps the head of household, was definitely the ringleader. Everyone used the word in its usual senses, so the pun was obvious. It’s been said that after a family of 10 finished bathing in the same water on a Saturday night, the water was opaque with dirt. Since children often bathed last, finishing with the youngest, the saying arose, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.” Its meaning is philosophical now, but then it was a joke that referred to the fact that the baby was practically invisible in the filthy water. Sounds disgusting, but after a week without any bath...maybe not.

Many more people were poorly educated. A seventh-grade formal education wasn’t uncommon a century ago. Life necessitated work, not more school, but while they were behind us in formal education, they were often ahead in practical skills. Nonetheless, times were simpler and so was humor, so the ringleader joke would have been a lot funnier. It’s enlightening to hear old Vaudeville routines from those days. Their uproariously funny humor is beyond corny now, yet there’s a lot to be said for it in contrast to today’s comedy.

As for modern interpretation of the ringleader joke, it’s easy to make the same errors people easily make when looking at any historical item. If you don’t know its context, you’ll inevitably judge it (distort it) by modern expectations, analyze aspects into it that never existed, subject it to your own biases, and reach a faulty conclusion. You have to be careful and thoughtful with the past. In some cases, people have forgotten that.

[scottcates]

My dad was a career welder but he wasn't super great at explaining it to his spaz of a son. Thanks for going into detailed differences between silver soldering and silver brazing -- probably saved me a year in therapy right there.

[Maxdd]

can I just say. I'm going to school for mechanical engineering and I'm one year from graduation. Before this video I had no idea what the application of braising was. Thank you for putting the time in to teach guys like me, It has made me a way better designer and all around engineer. love this channel!

[beadowarrior]

This channel has got to be one of - if not THE - best, most educational and entertaining channel around. Thank you for your effort.

[littlebacchus]

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
-Simone Weil

And no matter how long the video you will always have our full attention.

[SteveBrecht]

I am late to this one but wanted to say that this was one of the most straight forward explanations of what Flux does when soldering I have come across. Thanks!