Learning to Braze

Lately I've been inundated with work hours, plus other shit is going down in my life lately. So work on the RD has been slow lately. I've kind of been dragging my feet- some of it is just laziness, as I've been stuck in my head about solutions for seat mounting and stuff.

I have two RD400 frames and on both of them, the steering stopper tab/button has been knocked off. I was lucky enough to be able to relocate one of the original tabs- it was from my original Marsh frame. Since I will be riding the Primrose frame, the one that I'll be cutting up, I really need to have a button on that one. In case you have no idea what piece I'm speaking of, from the Yamaha factory, there is a small metal tab that is welded to the front of the headstock. It works in conjunction with the bottom triple tree clamp, which has a couple of stopper tabs sticking up. If the handlebars move too far to the left or to the right, the triple tree tab will effectively hit the stationary stopper welded to the headstock, preventing the steering from turning any further, therefore (in theory) stopping your handlebar (or triple tree nut) from putting a dent in your gas tank. Well, my bike has gone down a few times and the force of the crashes were probably strong enough to break the welds. I presume the Primrose frame suffered the same fate.

After putting some thought into how to address my missing steering stopper tab, I eventually decided to try brazing it back onto the frame myself. So I'm stealing the tab off the Marsh frame and brazing it onto the Primrose frame. The first attempt didn't go so good. I was smart enough to know that I needed a hotter flame than propane, so I bought a canister of map gas. But still that steel was way too thick to let the heat penetrate.

I thought that maybe a better torch handle could bring more heat, so I stopped by my local Lowes hardware store. They just happened to have a Bernzomatic kit that came with map gas and oxygen!! For only $70, it was worth giving it a whack. After I bough it, I went home and read the reviews, which were not good. Apparently people were having problems with the flame blowing out and the sensitivity of the controls. I searched a little more and found some helpful videos on how to get the flame to ignite and how to do careful adjustments.

This video is really a life-saver! It will save you from valuable minutes of wasted oxygen consumption.

It really didn't take long for the headstock metal to heat up. I used the bronze rod and after doing three sides, the welds seemed very strong! I am confident this stopper will hold, even after a crash!

 

So now that I have a little bit of brazing skills, I'm probably going to braze some nuts or T-nuts directly to the frame, so I can fasten the seat pan down. I believe that I will also have to braze a cross-member to the back of the frame, so I have somewhere to mount the rear brake lamp. I'm still working out the details and dimensions on these last two points. When these things are done, I can finally take this frame to the powdercoater! And when I finally cut down that front fender, I'll be able to haul all my parts to my Sacramento painter!