questions about soldering job

Plumbing Forums

Help Support Plumbing Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

sawatdee

New Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2010
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Location
,
The valves under my kitchen sink needed to be replaced. I cut off the old compression nuts and rings, and bought the stuff I would need to extend the pipes from the wall enough to attach new valves. I've never soldered before and had to work very close to the wall under the sink, not much room. I'm half done and it seems to have worked, but a couple of questions have come up.

1. After soldering the coupling on, I notice there is a little accumulation of solder inside the bottom of the coupling that prevents from being able to push the extra piece of pipe up against the other piece of pipe in the coupling. Does this matter? I was able to solder the extra pipe onto one of them and it soldered just fine, I was able to push the pipe on plenty far enough to solder the pipe on. Not sure if it holds water yet, and I don't know how good it is to have that gap inside the pipe. Should I have soldered both the pipe and coupling on at the same time?

2. Everything I've read says I should remove the burrs after cutting the pipe. I'm not exactly sure what they mean by "burr". The only thing I notice after cutting the pipe is a very thin ridge just inside the end that was cut. There was nothing rough on the edge. It was a clean cut. I tried removing that thin ridge using steel wool but I could still feel it with the tip of my finger when I soldered the couplings on. Will this be a problem?
 
It is best to have the pipe "bottomed out" in the fitting before you solder it in. If you reheat the joint to the point that the solder is molten, then gently tap on the end of the pipe till the pipe hits the bottom of the fitting, this should solve the problem. After that, reapply some flux, and reheat just a little so you can add a little more solder.

As far as the burrs, for the application you are looking at, I wouldn't worry too much.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top