Sweating Brass Shut Offs

Hey All,

I have a small problem. I'm installing a new pedestal sink and I have soldered on a pair of 1/4" turn brass shut offs onto 1/2" copper lines. When I soldered the valves on I left them open, but it took about a minute and a half to get the valve hot enough to melt the solder. Once the valves were cool, I closed them and turned on the water. The valves are now leaking from the stems, is it possible I damaged some gaskets during soldering? If so how can I avoid this or should I just but threaded valves instead? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

You may have heated them too much.
I prefer the compression style with copper lines. I don't like to do any soldering on a finished wall.

If you need to replace them, you can always use a sleeve puller like the one below.

Thanks for the response Terry, I'm sorry I was not clear in my original question, this is a new installation so I'm not soldering against a finish wall (thankfully). My problem is now, I have water in the lines so I have drained them as best I can, I have little faith in my by ability to install a compression shut off, How does it attach to the copper stub out? I think I'm leaning towards installing a 1/2" threaded inlet 3/8" outlet unless I can confidently install the compression valve you noted. As always thanks for any advice.

Jason

If you can handle a wrench and follow instructions you can put in a compression fitting. The only way you mess up is if you don't tighten it enough (then you just torque a little more), or you overtighten it (this is fairly hard to do, not impossible). There are only three parts - the valve, the compression nut and a compression sleeve. Well, another thing that can be messed up, is if you don't have the pipe cut off straight or the length you want first.

Thanks for the tips.