Silicon Bronze Welding

[jkata]

Good afternoon chaps

This is my first post on the board having read a few threads.

I have a question on behalf of my other half's father who is a sculptor.

He works predominantly in bronze and is keen to buy a decent mig set that will work well with silicon bronze wire.

What would people recomend?

Cheers

John

 

[malcolm]

Welding bronze with brazing wire is technically bronze welding, so I'd imagine the rules will be quite different from ordinary MIG brazing which tends to be used to join fancy steels. For that you would have needed a Synergic MIG if you chose the MIG route - designed not to heat up the surrounding metal too much. For actual welding you do want to heat up the surrounding metal so I suspect an ordinary MIG might be better. Fairly sure you'd need to use a pure argon shielding gas. Someone else is bound to have done it before and will be able to advise better.

TIG and oxy-acetylene could also be used for bronze, and both would likely result in a better finish than MIG. Why are you interested in MIG, and what sort of things will be welded? Is it for hole filling or joining parts, and how thick?

 

[weldequip]

Oxy/Acetylene is the way to go for that type of work...far more versatile than the electirc arc processes for small sculptural work
weldequip

 

[zst]

I know three sculptors. Two of them have pulse MIG machines (very expensive) and one has plain MIG/MAG machine.

They mostly use CuSi3 wire mostly-around 24 EUR/kg.

Sometimes they use wire CuSn13-around 42 EUR/kg but also covered electrode in this class. This alloy is very similar to the base materials (mostly family of CuSn12 alloys)...

For the repairing of sculptures, CuMnNiAl wire (around 50 EUR/kg) is occassionaly also used. It is perfect wire for all Cu-alloys, for joining Cu-alloys to steel etc...

Those wires are sold on 15 kg spools so you must spend a lot of money in the start...

 

[jkata]

He is an experienced sculptor and welder, knows what wire he wants to use etc, what he wants to know is basically what machines to look for.

Up until recently he was head of sculpture for a big art college and had all the kit within his department. He's just retired and wants to buy his own mig to use at home.

 

[English Steve]

Could do a lot worse than the Portamig currently in the For Sale section.