What exactly is MSG soldering or MIG soldering and how does it work?
Metal inert gas brazing is similar to brazing with acetylene and oxygen. The handling and equipment you use for MAG welding can also be used for MIG brazing. Argon is used as the shielding gas. Argon is an inert gas – hence the term metal inert gas brazing.
You can find the right argon gas in various delivery forms on the Air Liquide online portal – just take a look.
Advantages of MIG brazing (MSG brazing)
With MIG brazing or MSG brazing, you can achieve the following results when welding:
- Less burn-off is formed
- No burnback
- Gap bridging is avoided
- Reduced evaporation during brazing
- Soldering galvanised sheets made easy
- Corrosion protection is made possible
- Minimises spatter formation, distortion and reworking
- Various materials can be used
- Your soldering performance is improved
Below, we take a closer look at the advantages of MIG soldering.
How sensitive are your requirements? Less burn-back and burn-off with MIG soldering!
One advantage of MSG soldering is that your solder has a working temperature that is well below the melting point of your sheet metal. This means that your sheet metal will not melt when you want to join it to other sheets. The burn-back on the opposite side remains unaffected and protected.
Furthermore, MIG soldering involves less heat input. In most cases, the tensile strength is absolutely sufficient and withstands the expected stresses. MIG soldering in car body construction therefore has a major advantage over welding, where minimising distortion is a major challenge. Reworking is much easier and faster with MIG brazing, as the solder is considerably easier to grind, for example. You have two classic solders to choose from: either CuSi3 or CuAl8 – depending on whether you want your solder to flow faster or whether you want your solder to withstand more stress. In most cases, CuSi solder is chosen – hence the name "CuSi soldering". In any case, you now have less reworking to do when straightening your sheets.
If you need to ensure that the chemical and physical properties of your sheets are not affected and want to prevent the chemical components from burning off, then MIG soldering (MSG soldering) is also the right application for you.
MIG brazing is both tolerant and ingenious – goodbye gap bridging!
MIG brazing can cope with a wide variety of requirements. Your sheets do not always fit together perfectly. Sometimes the gap is larger, sometimes smaller. Gap bridging, which often gets in your way, can be easily solved with the MIG brazing process.
MSG soldering copes very well with the larger gaps between the sheets in this process. Have you ever welded steel to aluminium? That's right: it's actually impossible! In the past, this was solved with "Schwöten" (a combination of "welding" and "soldering"). Today, MIG soldering is the ideal solution. Even the most diverse material combinations are possible, so you can join steel, chrome-nickel and aluminium copper, for example.
Do you have problems with galvanised sheets, pore formation or evaporation during application? MIG soldering allows you to overcome these challenges!
Steel sheets are galvanised to make them virtually corrosion-resistant. This involves applying a thin layer of electrogalvanised coating or a slightly thicker layer of hot-dip galvanised coating. Would you like to solder galvanised sheets but are worried that they might rust afterwards? During welding, so much zinc evaporates that it is almost impossible to join conventionally galvanised sheets without having to worry about corrosion protection afterwards.
As soldering does not involve particularly high working temperatures, not as much zinc evaporates. This greatly reduces evaporation during soldering (which is also responsible for pore formation). As a result, most of the zinc remains on the surface of your sheets. Re-galvanising is now unnecessary, as your sheets still have sufficient protection against corrosion. MIG soldering saves you a lot of rework on your projects!
Reduced spatter formation with MIG brazing
When welding galvanised sheets, you have to contend with a lot of welding spatter that sticks to your sheet everywhere. In addition, the adhering welding spatter damages your galvanised surface. With MIG brazing, you have virtually no spatter that could damage your galvanised surface.
This means that your sheet metal remains protected against corrosion. This greatly reduces your reworking time and increases productivity enormously.
Our tip: MIG brazing with argon and oxygen or CO2! To further improve your brazing performance!
Have you successfully set up your production and are you open to improvements? Are you ready to get the most out of MIG brazing?
With a small amount of CO2 or a little oxygen in argon, you can simplify your application. With these special shielding gases or process gases, you can also minimise the heat input during MIG brazing or braze faster, among other things. All in all, these are ways to increase your productivity.
Do you have any questions about these options? We are happy to assist you at SchweisserCampus. Or take a look at our YouTube channel, where you may find some interesting tips and tricks.
MIG brazing is like an insider tip for joining a wide variety of materials. Although the equipment is slightly more expensive to purchase than a conventional welding machine, it offers impressive possibilities where welding has its limitations. Heat minimisation, reduction of distortion, fewer spatters and gap bridging are very good arguments in favour of this process. Good luck!