I'm curious if anyone has blended home made headers with brazing rod or something else to smoth out all the joints amd fill minor imperfections or knows what the process is.
To try and blend a header tube weld joint would be a failed effort if it wasn't a proper weld and joint fitment to start with. If it is then careful work with a sanding disc and sanding rolls will do the trick.
They used I thought brass or so.lmething back in the 50s after they welded them up to smooth everything out and make the the headers seamless looking before chroming
Brazing the flange to the pipe was done on some headers, I did it to a set I built...but not so it would look good chromed. If you already welded it and the welds are not good enough to chrome, maybe you should practice your welding skills for a while, and then build another set? Make sure to use either TIG or oxyacetylene to weld the tubes together. MIG just won't give the appearance you want.
Heat can be an issue with anything other than welds. The header flange will be slightly cooler but you can see the potential issue.
I built the headers for my outlaw clone. Tig welded . I also did all of the pre plating sanding and polishing. You have to be careful welding them up, make sure to use enough filler rod while also making sure you have enough penetration. Tig has a tendency to undercut along the edges. I did a bunch of the finish work with files and sanding blocks. There were areas that I had to touch up by re welding and filing to make it good enough to chrome. You must have 100% pit free welds in order to be successful
I made these out of stuff I had laying around. Mig welded, sanding, filing, some more welding and sanding. They came out good and cost me almost nothing.
If that pic if not a Thermal pic , What RPMs & for how long, That looks to be Higher then average Rpms for long period of time, Glowing looks to be around 950 - 1,100 degs . Thicker gauge tubing (wall-thickness) so you can have good penetration after grinding / sanding , or @ all welds use slip joint tubing , inner ring, So if your primary tub has a 2.000 I.D. Your / use the inner ring thats has a 2.000 O.D , , will give more support & a thicker weld & penetration. May be look into making headers out of chromoloy.
I built a set of headers many years ago using parts and suggestions from Headers by Ed, including brazing around the outside of each tube, after all welding was done on the head side. His reasoning iirc, was to minimize any "tinging". One positive result was better looking headers.
That's standard fare for engines on a dyno. Full load, full throttle. Once it has it's shoulder in it, the headers glow. Tubular and cast iron alike. I've seen iron so hot, you could see the wall thickness through it. I have a fiberglass car. It runs into a wall of air and gearing at about 90mph. If you hold it foot to the floor for a minute at night, you can see the header glow through the translucent white floor. We used to turn the lights off in the shop to marvel at the cherry red glow coming off of engines on the dyno. As far as dressing up welds, make it big everywhere, sand and grind it down, hope for no pits and bubbles, weld the inevitable pits and bubbles, sand and grind some more. Porting kits have a selection of shapes that come in handy. Mike
Takes a only few seconds for the header to get to that temp on full load (WOT). I have seen this on numerous occasions on a power run on a rolling road dyno, not continuous load.
@AccurateMike @'29 Gizmo I am thinking now , I will needed to set up a GoPro on my headers to see if they Turn cherry /orange on one of my pulls, 6 sec, 1/8 , I know driving steady rpms around 65 ish will start & to cherry @ 4 into one / collector
Yes, you can tig weld silicon bronze rod to fill imperfections in your lake pipes if you want to chrome them, the silicon bronze rod flows almost like solder at a high temperature. Some people use it to weld the headers but I think it would fail, best to weld tig weld the headers with normal filler and then touch up areas with the Silicon bronze, it is bronze in color if that matters. I did this set of pipes made from 35 ford driveshafts, full length, tig welded and finished with silicon bronze rod prepped for chrome plating (not done yet), not all imperfections can be removed but it is good enough for the plating shop to take it to the next level.
I'm old school, gas weld header tubes. MIG weld the tubes to the flanges. With average quality welds, as stated above, some work with carbide bits, sanding disks you can blend the welds perfectly. I still did a bit of brazing filler on a couple joints. I too braze the tube/flange joint for heat transfer/strength, not necessarily for looks. On my Mysterion project I smoothed the header before chroming but on closer inspection I discovered Ed had his welds raw before chrome. I am pretty sure he had a third party construct the exhaust on the car.
Tig weld it for strength and vibration resistance, then go back over the welds and deposit brass on top of the welds that you can use to sand out to a smooth finish and blend. The additional deposition of the brass build up will fill weld imperfections and be softer for filing and a smoother transition.
As some noted, use thicker tube gauge material - like 16 gauge - such that you have more to work with. Also, steel headers will rust from the inside out, so having more material means the rust has more to work with. While stainless is nice as far as longevity, it just doesn't look the same as chrome. I may experiment with ceramic coating the inside of steel headers before chroming - to see if that has potential. The big problem is getting the material to stick - so I'll need to ponder that a bit! LOL
I think he is referring to Lake Style headers and the sweeping joints. Only with Tig, could you run Silicone Bronze after welding and , smooth them out. At the flange, I always stop the pipe short of the inner flange surface by at least an 1/8", and seal weld inside, and follow up with Silicone Bronze on the outside.
We used to call the sweeping joints "duck bill joints" . . . the transition just looks right! I like the idea of using silicon bronze on the outside - would make the prep of the weld a lot easier. I think I'll try that on the headers for my Donovan 417 heads.
Have you done this before. It's along the lines of what I'm thinking to do. Altho I've mig welded mine up. Here's what I'm working with
No, I have not done it on headers. It should be easy enough to weld a "test" pipe and then com back over it with brass to see if it works for you. I'd consider using a Tig torch to apply the rod for more precise control of the flow as in Tig brazing.
Look into youtube on brazed bicycle frame builders. They really do a nice job on finishing out the fillets on joints.
I have some Tig Brazing rods I bought from Amazon. Also have some brazing rods that I bought years ago for my oxy/acet torch .......but haven't tried them with the Tig to see if they work OK. Nothing special as far as I know.
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