who would have thought high silver brazing rod is faked online

[coppercone2]

so I got some high silver braze from I believe amazon. I have the same piece of stainless steel I made some parts from last year. I cleaned it just as good and fluxed it plenty. Gets nice and hot and the braze just beads up on the surface like its dirty.

So if you are doing something that needs the silver, go to the store or get manufacturer direct. 
The "harris" brand is not going to help you in those web stores.

[TimFox]

Who would have thought that a brazing alloy would not be faked from an unknown source?

[coppercone2]

I did not think they would be replacing the contents of legitimate harris boxes at pretty much market value price. I was just too lazy, there was no savings. And uh quarantine.

Like I guess you can switch labels or get a blow molding machine or whatever? (its blow mold I think, the square harris tubes). Ugh. I just made a gnarly overkill weld on it...very over built so my project will be OK but that is like 100$ down the drain.

[james_s]

I'm not the slightest bit surprised. Silver is expensive, I would expect there to be a large selection of silver solders and brazing fillers that lie about the percentage of silver they contain.

[coppercone2]

I wonder if its a repackaging operation or if they are making fake harris boxes though. Harris switched to these rectangle tubes for small quantities (used to be cylinder tubes with rubber caps).

If you want to stay sane with brazing stuff, keep samples around of your materials and stock, don't use the very last rod up all the way. That way you can compare. I think I have a few tiny pieces left behind that were supposed to go into a improvised holder maybe.

Did not think I would thinking about running a evidence locker....

[T3sl4co1l]

Isn't it more likely your flux is bad or inappropriate?

If the alloy is just wrong, it won't melt at the expected temperature, not stick (or not) to some metal.

Tim

[coppercone2]

everything is the same but the rod. I have another piece I made last year from the same stock I cut this year, wet beautifully. The 56% works with that stainless. I am pretty sure I have seen this before when I tried 5% on inappropriate materials. When I get some fresh silver from the store I will try again, I have plenty of that stainless plate left behind. It flowed so nice that I had to spend a while with a angle grinder to get rid of the over flow.

[coppercone2]

tried them side by side on the same stainless piece, I found a 1 inch long piece of silver braze thats very old (2016), wet fine, stood up to grinding, made a round puddle.

The new piece made a big droplet that did not spread out and made some weird shape that kinda adhered to the metal, and during melting it did not wanna wet the steel, looks like a portion of it got ripped off by the belt sander. It's not wetting right.

into the trash bin that went, fluxed both with the same old flux btw and soldered at the same time.

[thm_w]

Link to amazon listing would be relevant.

[coppercone2]

I bought it some time shortly after the pandemic started, so there is no information about it, when I saw I was running low on the other one.

[coppercone2]

maybe this? Harris, 56318LMPOP (search on amazon). But I think I paid more. Maybe it was ebay.


looks about right, 50% of the other places price.

When I bought some deburring tool a while back, ebay Noga, it came with a tool type that does not exist in the noga catalog! must be from the future. wrong part # was sent and the part # that was sent had tools that do not exist in the catalog, let alone the contents of the part #.

[coppercone2]

And I found evidence of tampering on the brazing rod tube. Under the label, there is a scrap of material (looks to be a strip of label material), that is stuck under the label at a 45 degree angle. So basically it looks like scraps/cuttings got stuck to the label that was attached to the tube.... very unprofessional. But its hidden under the cap so you never look there.

Its like if you were doing something with scissors, then placed a label that you took off something else on a surface that had scraps of label material on it, then put it on the tube. brilliant.

but it looks like I am out of oxygen now so the fun is over 

[thm_w]

maybe this? Harris, 56318LMPOP (search on amazon). But I think I paid more. Maybe it was ebay.

looks about right, 50% of the other places price.

When I bought some deburring tool a while back, ebay Noga, it came with a tool type that does not exist in the noga catalog! must be from the future. wrong part # was sent and the part # that was sent had tools that do not exist in the catalog, let alone the contents of the part #.

Yeah those are not cheap, 56% silver, current price for silver is $75/100g.

99% of Noga stuff on ebay or aliexpress are clones. They are cheap, but so far the HSS blades I got are OK.

[coppercone2]

ehh the big ones are OK (the ID/OD tube ones) which is what I really wanted, but the small thin ones are crap compared to real noga ones. I guess they can get the big parts OK. The smaller ones are unusually fragile and chip alot, and cutting force is much higher. When I got a pack of the real noga ones it was pretty amazing. But the counterfiet noga are better then the non noga deburring tools that are alot cheaper, which are just flaming garbage, you can debur a piece of aluminum you basically melted with a torch prior

But its only 3 small tools, sure I only wanted it for brass tube, and I am sure it is gonna bite me in the ass soon enough. Haha I should try it on some titanium tube and see how it does

[matskatsaba]

Thankfully never ran into this issue. Dad bought a 4kg roll in 1986. I've inherited it a decade ago, still more than 80% left.