I have seen jigs that were predominately wood to avoid the heat loss, apparently if you are careful?you do not burn the wood but even if you did burn the wood so what,? just make a new one from a new piece of wood you just reuse the metal parts.
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.
