Confusion with copper, brass and bronze

Hello,

As I am installing a Kohler k-14489 valve (not sure if the body is brass or copper), I have accumulated a mixture of fittings and am wonder which is best.

The valve has female threads for hot, cold and the out and I plan to use male threaded adapter and sweat the copper to this.

My question is does matter or is there a preference on the threaded fittings? Would a copper threaded adapter be better than brass or bronze? Or does it matter?

As I practice the sweating I notice that it seems to take much more heat to sweat to the bronze than pure copper...and longer to cool (I screwed up a couple times and accidentally disassembled a joint that I thought was cooled enough).

Copper adapters are fine.Keep practicing untill you get the feel of soldering.
Solder adapters to pipe first and let cool.Then thread into body of faucet.
I will look at the install diagram for your faucet shortly.

Thanks, cwhyu2!

I will use the copper....I tried with a bronze adapter earlier after I already threaded into the valve and never did get it hot enough to sweat. I then took the adapter out and was able to solder it to copper...so have one assembly already.

not concerned about cost or anything, just what is best. I understand the copper adapter is ok, but is it the best solution?


thanks again!

It is getting harder to find decent fittings, so it might be a crapshoot. A copper one, assumig the threads are decent, should last as long as the pipe.

thanks very much!