[TheForge] Candle cups

[Bruce Freeman]

Good questions.

I think your definition of welding is generally correct - - but does it include forge welding?  I THINK the surface of steel or iron is molten during a forge weld, but I don't know it as a fact.

>From my recollection of my reading, the difference between soldering and brazing is the temperature of melting the material.  If you can use a soldering copper, it's soldering.  If it's too hot to use a copper, it's brazing.  Essentially, that means if you're melting a copper-based material, it's brazing.  Using the lower-temperature alloys, usually of tin and/or lead, it's soldering.

Bruce
NJ

>>> awashington at ou.edu 1/10/2006 3:00:31 PM >>>
Ron,
I always find myself confused by the terminology.  I've always called it welding if you melt the base metal and flow the filler into the puddle.  So when I use copper wire to fuse copper base metal, I call it welding.  (But, I don't know that that is the correct term.)
 
Where I really get confused is in the difference between soldering and brazing.  As I understand it, you do not melt the base metal in either process.  I also understand (from reading the literature from suppliers) that brazing does not have to involve a copper or brass alloy (as I once thought).  Does soldering always involve a lead or tin alloy?  So what is the difference?
 
Aubrey (confused again)