It has to be a bit hotter and the solder doesn't flow as easily as the leaded solder. The hotter it gets the more spattering goes on and I don't like that. I can still sweat fittings together and a nice wet rag with cold water on it erases a lot of ugly stuff, but I always enjoyed the solder with led in it more. I know something had to go as they found more and more problems with led but I had that system worked out real well and the new solders take some playing to get them going right.
----- Original Message ----- From: Dale Leavens To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 7:34 AM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] I hate plumbing! What's wrong with lead free solder? I have never noticed anything except maybe the pipe wants to be just a little hotter but not much in it as far as I have noticed. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. ----- Original Message ----- From: David W Wood To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:44 AM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] I hate plumbing! Hi Bob: I enjoy plumbing also. as the name is derived from the latin word for Lead (plumbum) I find it odd that they have removed lead from solder! i find the lead-free solder difficult to use, so where possible use either compression or push fittings. David ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Kennedy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 11:57 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] I hate plumbing! > Always the odd ball, I like plumbing. It has gotten a bit harder to > solder since they have done away with led in the solder but I can still > sweat a pipe together. > > For those that don't like risking a fire in the house, they now make a > solderless compound for copper pipes. It is much like the C A form of > epoxy I use to build golf clubs with. It comes in a can and you brush it > on like the stuff used with PVC. Great idea for places where a torch is > dangerous. I'll find the link and send it along later. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: David Ferrin > To: [email protected] > Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 1:45 PM > Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] I hate plumbing! > > > The question is who if anybody likes plumbing actually. Oh the joys of > owning a home. > David Ferrin > www.jaws-users.com > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Dan Rossi > To: [email protected] > Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 1:39 PM > Subject: [BlindHandyMan] I hate plumbing! > > This weekend was spent in battle with the pipes. The war was waged on two > fronts, the kitchen faucet, and an unused toilet in the basement. > > the faucet had the upper hand for a while, but it now lays in many pieces > at the bottom of my trash. Score one for the blind guy! > > This was an old faucet with three separate mountings, one each for the > two > taps, and one for the faucet itself. I spent a lot of time under the sink > with the mother of all basin wrenches trying to get the nuts off the taps > to no avail. I tried taking them out from above, but there was no way to > grab onto the little collars, which also happened to be puttied to the > sink surface. Much to Teresa's dismay, I, screaming that I would exact my > vengeance on the faucet, ran to the basement and retrieved my Dremel. > Several broken cutting disks later, after much prying, cursing and > snarling, the taps and faucet were removed from the sink and the sink > surface was not marred from the Dremel. > > Of course, after I slid the new faucet in place, the flex tubes attached > to the faucet were not long enough to reach the shut-offs under the sink. > That meant, not surprisingly, another trip to the store, but that had to > wait until Sunday. > > Sunday morning I took a closer look at the toilet in the basement. This > is a cruddy old toilet stuck in the corner of the basement with a plywood > wall on none side and a partial plywood door. These are very common in > Pittsburgh. The guts of the tank were completely rusted and broken and > since the shut-off to the toilet didn't actually shut the water off, > there > had been a paint can wedged into the tank to keep the fill valve closed. > I had upgraded the paint can to a 20 pound dumbell but figured I should > probably fix the shut-off and take care of the tank guts while I was at > it. > > Off to the store. We found some flexible tubes to extend the faucet lines > and I installed them as soon as we got home. Had a lot of trouble getting > the sprayer attachment threaded onto the under-side of the faucet, but > Teresa eventually got her hands in there and got it tightened down. New > faucet, with a single handle, works fine, of course, the brand new, $108 > faucet has an itty bitty drip. > > Back down to the basement to lead the attack on the toilet. > > Turns out that the water connection to the tank was pretty clugy. Check > this out, step by step: > > Long Copper pipe literally hangs down from the ceiling joists, > threaded fitting sweated onto end of Copper pipe, > shut-off screwed onto fitting, > short, threaded, black iron pipe screwed into shut-off, > elbow screwed into black iron, > horizontal copper sweated into elbow, > elbow sweated into other end of horizontal Copper, > Some kind of fitting, possibly compression, bodged onto elbow, > finally into tank. > > I managed to get the shut-off replaced with a ball valve without too much > trouble. I managed to get the guts of the tank changed with a lot of > work, having to cut and tare out some of the old parts. I could not get > the funky assembly described above to go back into the new tank > connection > without leaking rather impressively. So, we are at a draw at the moment, > but I intend on replacing most of that assembly with a flexible hose. > > Nearly panicked when in an attempt to identify what branch of my house > plumbing has a slow leak, I turned off a shut-off and it proceeded to > gush > water like a hose. I got the main valve for the house shut and messed > around with the shut-off for a while and cranked it open again and it > seems to be happy for the time being. I'm starting to contemplate > replacing all my shut-offs with ball valves. Replacing everything with > PEX actually sounds very good at the moment, although I think Teresa > might > hang me with the PEX if I attempt a job like that. Certainly not before > the deck railings are done. > > I hate plumbing! > > -- > Blue skies. > Dan Rossi > Carnegie Mellon University. > E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: (412) 268-9081 > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > To listen to the show archives go to link > http://acbradio.org/handyman.html > or > ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ > > The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. > http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday > > Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various > List Members At The Following address: > http://www.jaws-users.com/JAWS/handyman/ > > Visit the archives page at the following address > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > If you would like to join the JAWS Users List, then visit the following > address for more information: > http://www.jaws-users.com/ > For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man > list just send a blank message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Yahoo! 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