sweating

This is not rocket science. Clean pipe and fitting and apply flux to both. Heat fitting until solder flows / sweats into joint. Applying approx. 1/2" +/- of solder wire for 1/2" pipe and fitting. Wipe joint with rag and allow to cool. Your done.
 
Last edited:
Cass said:
This is not rocket science. Clean pipe and fitting and apply flux to both. Heat fitting until solder flows / sweats into joint. Applying approx. 1/2" +/- of solder wire for 1/2" pipe and fitting. Wipe joint with rag and allow to cool. Your done.
Click to expand...

Except that the people at www.copper.org / copperhome / DIY / do it yourself _ soldering school . html say

http://www.copper.org/copperhome/DIY/************_solderingschool.html said:
7. HEATING
Begin heating with the flame perpendicular to the tube. The copper tube conducts the initial heat into the fitting cup for even distribution of heat in the joint area. The extent of this preheating depends upon the size of the joint. Preheating of the assembly should include the entire circumference of the tube in order to bring up to a suitable preheat condition. However, for joints in the horizontal position, avoid directly preheating the top of the joint to avoid burning the soldering flux. Practice and experience will indicate the amount of heat and time needed.

Next, move the flame onto the fitting cup. Sweep the flame alternately between the fitting cup and the tube a distance equal to the depth of the fitting cup. Again, preheating the circumference as described above, with the torch at the base of the fitting cup. Touch the solder to the joint If the solder does not melt, remove it and continue heating.
Click to expand...

They say to heat the fitting and the pipe!

And does anyone know why I can't get their URL to show up correctly?
 
That advice is counterintuitive. Molten solder will flow TO heat. You want the solder to suck into the joint. Heating the pipe doesn't help. perhaps they mean to heat the fitting which by conduction will heat the section of pipe that's inside the fitting. THat's what you want.
 
joint

Many, many years ago, Nibco made a go/no go gauge for solder joints. If it the GO slid into the joint between the pipe and fitting it was too loose and would not solder properly. A proper joint would reject the NO Go side.
 
Ideally you could heat everything (pipe and fitting) to a few degrees above the solder's melting point uniformly and the solder would flow into the gap between the fitting and the pipe by capillary action. However, as the solder melts it absorbs heat from the pipe and fitting, thus cooling the joint. If any part of the joint is too cool, the solder will stop flowing.

Heat must be applied in proportion to the thermal mass to be heated -- which means more heat to the fitting (usually) than to the pipe. In practice (and the more practice, the better), you start heating the fitting until the flux starts to melt/bubble/flow, then shift the heat to the pipe for a bit, then back to the fitting, etc., but you always spend more time on the fitting. Some torches have a curved reflector attachment that goes around behind the pipe/fitting which helps distribute the heat (and also helps prevent burning down the house).
 
Just re-read the DIY link and checked out their website. The key word in the Heating section is "preheat" -- they only heat the pipe (initially) to start the overall heating process, then move to the fitting to fire for effect, as it were. Keep in mind that the objective is to get the entire joint slightly above the melting point of the solder, while not getting any part of the joint too hot -- which would destroy the flux and oxidize the pipe and/or fitting. At that point all you can do is take things apart, re-clean, and start over.

If you concentrate most heating time on the fitting, and tap the end of the solder wire on the pipe next to the joint, you will notice the solder first just taps and feels like solid wire, then it feels a little soft or dull, then it sticks as it melts but immediately cools, FINALLY it flows into the joint.

Practice makes better.
 
And as for the URL...

The piece of the URL that fails is "************" which is apparently on Terry's naughty-word list. This site intentionally censors several other sites, selected medications such as ******, etc. This often results in some oddities. If you want to refer to someone who specializes in something, you can't call him a "spe******t", for example.
 
Wow, that's a lot of **** ******* *** ********** ** *****!!!

I move heat all the time when soldering copper. Sometimes I start top down instead of down and up since heat rises. Reason I go top down is that I don't have to worry about solder dripping all over the place when I heat the upper joint and gravity already sends it to the lower.

If I have a threaded connection that I have to solder close to, I always heat the pipe and let the temperature slowly enter the socket to make a good connection.

In other words, Get R Done is all I care about and the solder connection is 100% complete.
 
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