|
Posted by Rick on March 27, 2007, 9:53 am
> I am looking at a couple copper pipe joints where a temporary copper cap was
> soft soldered in the normal way over hard copper water line. From the
> coloration the joints have obviously been overheated in the process of
> trying to desolder them. They swear that they used ordinary plumbing solder
> to solder them together and a third joint they had soldered at the same time
> with the same solder but did not do anything in the way of desoldering to,
> desoldered very easily with only moderate heat when I tried. It slid right
> apart as soon as it got hot enough for the solder to flow just like it's
> supposed to, but the other two (the overheated ones) will NOT come apart. I
> have tried grabbing the very end of the cap with pliers and pulling twisting
> etc and it will not budge. I am positive they have been heated enough that
> there is no way that soft solder by itself is capable of holding them
> together. Solder touched to the pipe next to the joint readily flows but the
> joint stays rock solid. The pipe is not distorted so it is not a crimp type
> effect jamming them together. It is obviously plain copper pipe there are no
> threads. The only thing around the joints is soft plumbing solder residue,
> which easily melted when the joints were heated. No sign at all of any hard
> solder/brazing and they say they just used ordinary plumbing solder. Could
> they have been over heated enough with MAPP gas to effectively weld the
> copper? I don't want to heat them much beyond the flow point of plumbing
> solder if I can help it because they are pretty close to the wall, and I
> don't want a fire or destroyed solder joint in the wall. Anybody seen this
> before?
No, they aren't welded. Somebody probably drove the cap on over a burr formed
when the
tube was cut, or the fitting was on the tight side.
I've seen larger sizes (1-1/2, 2") that have been in service for a while
stick-sometimes
that's a case of not enough solder to fill the joint and corrosion setting in...
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap