Making room for mesh, part 3

Brazing… A sound idea, with execution caveats. I’ve talked about the technique in past posts, and have been really looking forward to putting it to use in my modding. So, with a few sticks of HTS-2000 and my torch, I made a few practice runs with great success. However, with the reality of using the actual case cover, things turned out a little differently…

I was having problems with getting the aluminum hot enough without causing warping. Originally, I didn’t think this would have been an issue, as the HTS-2000′s melting temperature is 500 degrees below that of the aluminum. Well, there’s a big difference between melting point and the metal simply becoming more flexible as heat was applied. Not one to give up, I thought it might be a mounting and support issue. I tried several different methods, before ultimately deciding that maybe brazing wasn’t the best course of action at the moment.

So what went wrong? It was really quite simple in the end. The area I was trying to braze was a relatively narrow piece of aluminum. It was a little over 16 mm in width. The torch was applying a lot of heat in small area, and with insufficient supporting material, it was softening the metal before getting hot enough to melt the rod. It’s something that I didn’t come across in all my practice, as I was using larger pieces of aluminum. There was more metal to dissipate the heat, prevent warping, and still allow the aluminum to reach the HTS-2000′s melting temperature.

While I may not have been able to use the brazing technique in this particular instance, the method still has it’s place. I’ll definitely use it again in the future, under more ideal conditions.

Now that brazing is off the table, I fall back to good ol’ JB Weld. It will still do an outstanding job, and that brings us to the following pics…

Up next will be the the finished cover, and then I’m back to case details…