How To Quick Clean Copper Fittings/Pipe

Molo

Molo

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Hi,
I am wondering if there is a quick way to clean fittings and pipe. When I solder this is by far the slowest part of the process and I will be doing a lot of pipe repair this spring/summer.

Thanks for any replies!
 
tubing

A brush chucked into a cordless drill will clean the fittings, but if you have that much copper to cut and clean, buy my electric copper cutter, cleaning, and reaming machine off Craig's list.
 
For my DIY purposes, I use a brush for the fittings, and emery cloth for pipe ends. I do sometimes use the donut shaped brush for pipe, but a strip of emery seems to be easier to keep track of and it's easy to replace. I'm sure for a professional soldering day in and day out this would be a bit primitive.
 
hj said:
A brush chucked into a cordless drill will clean the fittings, but if you have that much copper to cut and clean, buy my electric copper cutter, cleaning, and reaming machine off Craig's list.
Click to expand...

What city for Craigs List? I'm not sure how to find it.

Thanks
 
Personally, tho' it's a pain in the butt to clean copper I don't see the need to buy a machine to do it. For residental work I hold a piece of emery cloth around 3/4 and 1/2" copper pipe then roll it across my thigh with the palm of my hand. I couple of whacks that way it's ready to go. On big stuff, up to 3" It has always just been very quick to loop a long piece of emery cloth over the pipe and run around it like I'm polishing my shoe... I could do a half dozen by the time I could get a machine out and in place. A few spins of a good brush and I get the fittings done... not a big deal to me and I've probably soldered as many as 100 joints in a day.
 
I suspect the OP has tendonitis or something that might impair their ability to prep copper the old school way.
 
After all the discussion I think I might try a drill chucked brush and the emery cloth. I guess it doesn't take that long and I don't have 100's of fittings, just dozens.

Thanks for all the replies! :)
 
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