Gas Welding

irishwill wrote:

google the "tinman" metal working....he has some instructional dvds for gas welding/brazing....and a uber cool micro torch
hope this helps

guys like that make me feel like a caveman! :laugh:

PLUMMEN wrote:

rslingshot wrote:

Cutting the tank in half is alot of work. I took the seam of the kz I'm doing now the look of a deseamed tank is great but it is a pain in the ass. I used a tig welder to weld it which took even longer but you get a much more controled and stronger weld.

allright,how about a better picture of your avatar? its giving me a warm feeling! :woohoo:

Glad you like,I have alot of swingarm pic's


top one is a GSX-R 600 6-10 adjustable


Bottom one is a hayabusa with the top brace cut off 6-8 adjustable

I would think tig is definitely the ticket for welding a gas tank back together.

About 25 years ago I brazed a big patch in a car gas tank. I only had a propane torch. It was a big torch, not a small pencil torch. It took a long time, but was plenty hot enough. I'd be afraid that O-A would end up melting too much away, especially when you are trying to put seams back together. When it gets away from you, you can lose a lot of metal. With propane, it takes longer, but you don't burn any metal away. The patches I did had about a 1/2 inch overlap all the way around the edges. The patch was about the size of a big envelope. When I was done, it held very strong with just brazing. I'm sure tig would have been superior, but I had no money back then being a student.

When I brazed it, I had the tank full of water to within a few inches of where I was brazing. I'm sure this made it take longer, but it saved most of the interior and exterior coating from burning off.

You find the funniest things in an old gas tank. I found a pair of socks, and a few gas station paper rags... totally in tact! I figure the previous owner must have lost the gas cap and sealed it with the rags and socks... they probably kept getting sucked in since he probably plugged the vent when he stuffed the rags in.

Oxy- Acetylene welding takes finesse by doing a lot of practice. The method was used years ago to weld aircraft frames made of chrome-molly tubing. Brazing on the other hand is a lot easier but also takes some practice so one doesn't burn a hole through the metal being repaired. Often people use too hot of a flame and tend to oxidize the metal before laying on the brass rod. Brazing a gas tank that is rusty would be very hard to do. I would prefer to use a lead solder to repair any pin holes in the tank, and then some filler to finish the job. An Oxy-Acet torch causes a lot of concentrated heat and may do more damage than you started off with. Either way, make sure the tank is well cleaned of any fuel or residue, since it can blow up with an open flame. Good luck.

clean the tank out with mek before welding on it or you could end up through the roof that goes for arc and oxy