Ralph, Thanks for offering your friends welder, but as of 2 days ago, I have working jigs for scarfing and brazing bandsaw blades!
My first attempt worked well, but the next blade had 2 failures before I got it to work.
I made the welding jig out of aluminum and I only had about a half inch gap in the jig. I think the jig was acting too much like a heat sink so I had to heat it quite a bit. After I widened the gap to a bit over an inch, I was able to use a smaller, more focused flame.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion.
Karl
@KarlH