Tandem Tom

As I ask these various quesyions be assured the answers go into my notebook. I really appreciate the information you fellows share.
OK,todays question. I wad watching Brodue Bikes video on fillet brazing and he does a first pass with the above mentioned rod. Not djre what the spec is. But 2 questions. Is it to ensure an internal fillet? Also he used it for a chainstay bridge. So is this product the same as Fillet Pro? Ehat would the spec be? I see GasFlux has this item.
Thanks

unterhausen

Fillet pro is 40+% silver. Nickel silver, despite the name, has no silver in it at all. It's very close to brass. The name was given to it by tinsmiths that wanted to pretend it was silver.

Cycle designs sells nickel silver rods. And flux, which is the more important part because the liquidus temperature of nickel silver is a little higher than brass. Brodie uses nickel silver at first because it doesn't re-melt during the second pass. I am not convinced there is a problem with brass tacks re-melting.

Nickel silver is a little more difficult to use than brass. I'm not sure I would recommend it to a beginner. You can also develop a nickel sensitivity, so cooking it is bad. And brass flux is just barely adequate if you are going to be on the high end of the temperature range.

niknak

Ever since Brodie made those videos there's been lots of chatter about using nickel silver. You don't need to use it. Good old fashioned LFB is suitable to the task.

dsaul

The only time I've ever used Nickel Silver was to join stainless dropouts to 4130 Chain and Seat stays. It takes a lot of heat and the chance of burning your chromoly tubes is high. I wouldn't recommend it for anything.

unterhausen

When I was at trek, everything that wasn't brazed with silver was brazed with nickel silver. I got really good at using it, but I'm pretty sure I developed a sensitivity to it. That skill doesn't really help me now, decades later. I figure that we used it because it's 3% stronger or something. No good reason, that's for sure. There weren't any stainless parts back then. That's the only reason I use it now, but I mostly use fillet pro for stainless unless it's something like a seat stay cap that I don't want to mess up when re-heating. It's finicky with stainless because it's really easy to get stainless into a state where it's hard to braze at nickel silver temperatures. Something precipitates out and interferes with the process. I don't like using it on stainless racks, although I might try some test brazes now that I have the cycle designs flux.

Andrew R Stewart 

The only time I used nickle silver was at Eisentraut's class way back when. My memory was that it was significantly harder to file then common brass. For that reason I am out Andy (channeling his Shark Tank)