invention

[fish]

So, I'm feeling a little proud of myself for my good idea that worked. Not too proud. Only a little proud. It was only a little idea.

I have to solder a male fixture to the end of a pipe so I can attach the female water line that will run from the pipe to the water heater.

First I read how to "sweat" copper pipe and a copper fixtures together. How to cut and prepare the end of the pipe, how to apply the flux, how to use the torch, how to melt the solder, etc.

I can do this.

Never wondered why every picture in the book shows the pieces on a horizontal plane.

I've got a piece of copper water pipe running down directly vertical from the line above. Opening about 6.5 feet or so from the ground.

The drill is to slide the piece on to the pipe and hold it on while heating the pipe with the torch to get the surface of the pipe hot enough to melt the solder when the solderwire is touched to the surface of the hot pipe at the juncture of the pipe and the piece.

Got that ?

Anyway, if I don't hold the piece on, it falls off. If I hold the piece on I have one hand left for the either the torch or the solder, but not both.

If I try to put the torch down to pick up the solder, the pipe cools and the solder won't melt properly, not to mention the dangers of picking up and putting down a blazing little blow torch.

The guys at Lowes and Home Depot can't tell me how to do it. Get your wife to hold it there is the best they can do. I don't want to do that if I can help it. There is an open flame and molten solder in this equasion, and neither of us has much experience with the operation.

Think think think think think.

AH-HA moment.

Wire, heavy enough to hold a bend. In this case a big paper clip.

Straighten the clip out then bend it in half. <

Make little hooks at the ends of the wire.

Pass the bent wire through the piece to be attached with the hooks at the bottom end of the piece.

Spread the bent part of the wire extending out of the top end of the piece at the creating an arc in the wire just wider than the diameter of the pipe.

Compress the arc just enough to push the bent wire up the pipe. It will hold enough bend so it will press against the sides of the pipe like a spring.

The little hooks hold the piece on to the wire. The bend in the wire holds fast in the pipe.

Hey, presto !!

After sweating the joint, just pull the wire out of the pipe.

This is probably something everybody who does this kind of thing knows, but I'm as pleased as a little kid with my "discovery".

Also, we have hot water.

[Smoke]

Nice job Fish...you need to start compiling all this stuff and sell a book to Home Depot and Lowes.

For me....2 words...Compression Fitting.

[fish]

Good for you Smoke.

Now that I have looked up compression fittings, they look exactly right for the job.

And I am trying to reckon what good reason there could possibly be for compression fittings not to be in the directions for R&R waterheater in any of the books and web sites I went to.

Must not be "up to code",

But the other applications they do use it for seem to me to have just as much risk.

The tap under the sink, for example.

But I will tell you this, if you practice sweating copper unions a couple of times on waste pieces, it becomes dead easy to do the job.

The key trick for me was understanding that capillary action will cause the liquid solder to coat all around the pipe. So one only has to melt the solder at a single point, and not all around the circumference of the pipe.

I still get a kick out of learning this stuff. Remember, for a Bronx boy like me, screwdrivers are for punching out car door locks and a chain saw is a personal defense device.

[Smoke]

When I did the plumbing in the house I went with pvc pipe..not copper. I learned all sorts of new things after doing most of them twice.

I agree with you fish, there is always something new to learn and when you accomplish it there is a great amount of satisfaction.

Speaking of learning it's time for my Illustrator tape.

Be back in 50 or so to post up.