Mnoone
Member
I recently replaced the main valve to my house and reran a lot of the cold water lines. Maybe 40 joints. All sweated. Most 3/4" copper (type L) with a small amount of 1/2".
To prepare for a joint, I'd cut pipe to length (with a Ridgid 101), ream it out (with a Husky pencil reamer) , clean the outside of the pipe and inside of fitting with a 4 1 in brush tool. For a while I was chamfering the outside of the pipe with a Ridgid 223S but eventually I found that that was actually creating a lip after the chamfer. So I stopped chamfering with that tool and instead used some open mesh sandpaper to chamfer the outer lip a bit.
If I tried to test fit the pipe into a fitting, often times it just wouldn't fit. Then I'd find some fittings where it would fit and some not, so I had to play around to find a combination that worked. And then sometimes the pipe would get stuck in the fitting (before I had even put flux in). When I was ready to make the joint I'd wipe flux onto the inside of the fitting and outside of the pipe and reinsert - and sometimes I wouldn't be able to get them to go together.
I've sweated joints before and never had this issue. But I was having this issue on 50% of the joints I'd wager. Some bits and pieces got so stuck I had to destroy one of the other piece to get them separated. I had this happen both with fluxed and non fluxed pieces.
My final joint I had to make was using a 3/4" coupling with no stop. I had to move the coupling all the way onto one pipe. It really wanted to get stuck so I decided to try sanding down the outside of the pipe a bit with some open mesh sandpaper. I would sand for a minute then do a test fit - if it was too tight I'd remove the coupling and sand again. What I found interesting was that the coupling was leaving lines on the pipe when I test fit it. And I could spin the coupling and it would just increase the contract of the lines, but that they'd stay in the same place. So from that I decided that the pipe was not quite round so I started standing those lines extra, then doing another test fit and going after any new lines created. This proved effective and I could eventually get the coupling to go on with minimal resistance and it left no lines.
But - why was all of this necessary? The pipe looked round to the naked eye. I think it may have just been slightly larger OD than normal and so any imperfections in the roundness was an issue? How can I avoid this in the future? I'd say this issue doubled the amount of time it took me to finish this project, so it was really, really frustrating!
To prepare for a joint, I'd cut pipe to length (with a Ridgid 101), ream it out (with a Husky pencil reamer) , clean the outside of the pipe and inside of fitting with a 4 1 in brush tool. For a while I was chamfering the outside of the pipe with a Ridgid 223S but eventually I found that that was actually creating a lip after the chamfer. So I stopped chamfering with that tool and instead used some open mesh sandpaper to chamfer the outer lip a bit.
If I tried to test fit the pipe into a fitting, often times it just wouldn't fit. Then I'd find some fittings where it would fit and some not, so I had to play around to find a combination that worked. And then sometimes the pipe would get stuck in the fitting (before I had even put flux in). When I was ready to make the joint I'd wipe flux onto the inside of the fitting and outside of the pipe and reinsert - and sometimes I wouldn't be able to get them to go together.
I've sweated joints before and never had this issue. But I was having this issue on 50% of the joints I'd wager. Some bits and pieces got so stuck I had to destroy one of the other piece to get them separated. I had this happen both with fluxed and non fluxed pieces.
My final joint I had to make was using a 3/4" coupling with no stop. I had to move the coupling all the way onto one pipe. It really wanted to get stuck so I decided to try sanding down the outside of the pipe a bit with some open mesh sandpaper. I would sand for a minute then do a test fit - if it was too tight I'd remove the coupling and sand again. What I found interesting was that the coupling was leaving lines on the pipe when I test fit it. And I could spin the coupling and it would just increase the contract of the lines, but that they'd stay in the same place. So from that I decided that the pipe was not quite round so I started standing those lines extra, then doing another test fit and going after any new lines created. This proved effective and I could eventually get the coupling to go on with minimal resistance and it left no lines.
But - why was all of this necessary? The pipe looked round to the naked eye. I think it may have just been slightly larger OD than normal and so any imperfections in the roundness was an issue? How can I avoid this in the future? I'd say this issue doubled the amount of time it took me to finish this project, so it was really, really frustrating!
