Two assemblies done. One in 56% silver, the other in brass. 1/4" vent holes drilled and well deburred both sides.


Well, I ran into a bit of an issue while brazing the ST sleeve. I was initially going to use brass because I was worried that if I used silver, I would run into issues later when doing the toptube joint. (It will be fillet brazed brass)
The issue was that I couldn't get the brass to flow very far into the joint. There just wasn't enough gap to suck the brass in.
I tried another joint in silver. (I'm actually making 2 bikes at once)
This went a little better but I ran into another issue. My original plan was to suck the filler from one end to the other. 4" proved to be just too far so I had to feed from both ends. However, I had neglected to drill a vent hole and when I wetted out the second end, the silver wouldn't flow. In a bit of a rush, I quickly drilled a vent hole and continued the joint. I did end up getting a lot of silver in the joint.
I also realized a drawback to my tapered sleeve design. While I like the aesthetics, the lack of a "shelf" where it meets the ST makes it hard to feed the silver without it running out onto the sleeve itself making cleanup difficult. If I did this again, I would either do the traditional design, or braze the sleeve and THEN cut the taper. And definitely drill vent holes first.



The sleeve and ST assembly in the lathe for a little trimming and cleanup.