Member postings for Theo

JasonB and duncan: Yes it's to match the other door hardware, and hide any potential burn through from the welding of the stainless.

Tim: Yeah I think you're right that using the door as a former would work with the brass plate.

Duncan: Good idea! I rung a local engineering firm who gave a reasonable quote and where happy to assemble when I said stainless was okay. I think I figured that brass would be easiest, but obviously not!

CuP Alloys: Thanks for the tutorial, holding it together with fine wire is a really interesting method, and sounds very simple. I haven't considered adhesives, mainly because I'm paranoid that if the letter box fails, I may miss a copy of 'Model Engineer'.

Jason B: Seems like pins are the way to go to reliably locate things. I'll be interested to see how the engineering firm I found today do it.

Nicholas: That's a good idea, and gets the part count down too.

Bazyle: Sorry I missed the Zoom call. Thanks for the invite. St Katherine's Priory is very close to my home so I may pop down (hopefully clutching a letter box) to say hello.

Dave: Managed to source one today.

Just need to find someone who can nickel plate the stainless. A couple of firms I rung today said they don't touch stainless. They suggested doing it with mild steel, but were very vague about how durable the plating would be to stop it corroding.

Thanks everyone for all of your help on my random project! It's been a real delight.

Martin: That's an interesting idea. I've seen Clickspring on YouTube do that kind of thing with great success.

Tim: I'd planned on making it 3mm, mainly because it looks like you can get polished brass sheet in that thickness. Now I'm wondering if I would be better off using 4mm milled brass to make the parts slightly less fiddly, and provide a bit more surface area.

Bazyle: I'm based in Exeter. It looks like there is a club in Taunton, so I'll reach out to them. At the risk of sounding stupid, could the jig be constructed out of something like plywood (easy to cut the curve into several pieces of ply laminated together), or would it hit ignition temperature too quickly?

Nicholas, that makes a lot of sense to me. I suppose I could build it out of copper, and then braze with brass, but it sounds like the 'silver alloy brazing' / 'silver soldering' should be fine.

Tim, good shout on the threaded sleeves. I think I can source some m5 brass PCB standoffs which look like they could do the job. I suppose I could make the ears out of brass bar, or brass angle. It would certainly make it less fiddly, would it make soldering harder because a thin sheet would be being attached to a thicker block?

Sorry for all the questions!

Yes, the ears are very small and fiddly to all keep aligned. How else could I design it to be easier to fabricate?

Hi,

Thanks all for all of the input. The 'brass brazing' as opposed to 'silver soldering' may be what has made it a challenge finding someone to do it.

The plan is to have it plated so it does not matter if it's not all brass. Here's an image of what I'm trying to achieve

Essentialy a nut, and the 'ears' for the hinge needs to be attached somehow. Do you think silver soldering would create a strong enough joint? I think usually these things are cast, but that would be far too expensive to fabricate that way.

Thanks, I'll give them a call.

I'd be happy to give it a go myself, but I suspect I'd be better off finding a company or person to do it as I don't own the right equipment for it already.

The companies I've spoken to so far haven't been keen to do it as they don't have much experience with brazing brass, which is why I thought a model forum might be a good place to look for the right expertise.

Can you recommend anyone?

Hi,

I'm new to the forum, but I'm struggling to find people in my area (Devon) that have experience brazing brass before, and thought a modelling community might be able to point me in the right direction.

I am in the process of fabricating a letter box (it's for a strangely shaped door) for our house, and I need the hinge components and a couple of nuts brazed to some curved 3mm brass sheet.

Would anyone be able to assist?

Thanks,

Theo