Olive Puller

agree with oilman-far too many gorillas out there-what are they tightening those nuts with-36" stillsons?

would say the better tool for removing olives is the olive removing tool-made by the same people but which cuts the olive off the pipe-have worked it out and I would save £1.98 in junior hacksaw blades over the next 3 years if I bought one of these.[/img]

Er.... one of these?

Looks like a good tool, but I think dougtsc couldn't get a hacksaw near it, so this tool would be as useful.

oilman said:

Crimping olives is NOT the way to seal the joint, in fact it is more likely to cause the joint to leak. What sort of pressure do you have on pipes that is going to cause them to blow off? If you have that sort of pressure, you should be using a different type of joint, and ALL the fittings, (taps, valves, water tank) would have to be rated to take the pressure.

The correct way to test the joints is to do a hydraulic test, not over-tighten it.

Click to expand...

Hi oilman

Er, you seem to have replied to a couple of things I didn't write.

For example, I didn't mention sealing the joint - that's a different subject. Although, while we're on it, 1st hand experience is that crimping doesn't make joints leak. You've confused crimping with incompetence.

Do you replace every wrong fitting that you come across? I certainly don't, and I'd soon see myself on Rogue Traders if I did. I surmise that your hint is aimed at using soldered joints, but it really isn't practical to replace every 'incorrect' compression joint with a soldered one, is it? I'm asking rhetorically of course.

Nor am I talking about the rating of valves, taps and other devices and appliances. Nothing personal, but you seem to be stating the obvious there.

To answer your question about the sort of pressure, I'm merely talking about mains pressure. For example, at a recent job, the mains was so high that all the Hep fittings that I'd just installed actually creaked and visibly moved when the cold was put back on. Clear groungs for a limiting device, but there wasn't one there before I started, and the guy had leaks from all kinds of places in his Combi system.

Now then - tell me that you've never ever seen a compression fitting that had excused itself from the duty of staying put on a 15mm rising main? No? Maybe all the installations that you encounter were perfectly carried out? Or perhaps you just haven't seen enough action yet?

Whatever the cause of your strongly-held view, I think maybe an open mind is best in all circumstances.

now then girls can we have a spot of calm prevailing

oilman said:

Er.... one of these?

Looks like a good tool, but I think dougtsc couldn't get a hacksaw near it, so this tool would be as useful.

Click to expand...

I bought one of these first, trouble was the compression fitting would not retract back into the wall far enough to uncover the olive and hence couldn't get this tool onto the old olive.

Total of about £40 to remove two olives !

Still I've got one more shower to do....so that works out at £10 per olive.

Ask popeye about Olive pulling, certainly stops his willey going rusty.

dougtsc said:

...olive puller arrived, old olives removed in a couple of minutes. This tool is well worth buying if you need to get olives off from difficult places ...very quick and easy to use.

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What was the name of the Olive Puller? Not Popeye by any chance.......

now then...i lauhghed the first time someone mentioned the olive cutters to me....ho ho ho
i then got 10 trvs to fit to an existing system and went out and bought some and they paid for themselves on that one job in time saved !!

manipulating carefully with waterpump pliers and a bit of wd40 works fine for me(if the olive is fairly easy to get to).get rid of sh1t round it first.

sr72 said:

manipulating carefully with waterpump pliers and a bit of wd40 works fine for me(if the olive is fairly easy to get to).get rid of s**t round it first.

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I've got a full set of the olive cutters aswell but 99 times out of 100 they come off with the water pump pliers unless some monkey, gorilla or related primate has managed to squash the copper pipe, then you are normally looking at cutting back and resoldering anyway.

Softus said:

oilman said:

Crimping olives is NOT the way to seal the joint, in fact it is more likely to cause the joint to leak. What sort of pressure do you have on pipes that is going to cause them to blow off? If you have that sort of pressure, you should be using a different type of joint, and ALL the fittings, (taps, valves, water tank) would have to be rated to take the pressure.

The correct way to test the joints is to do a hydraulic test, not over-tighten it.

Click to expand...

Hi oilman

Er, you seem to have replied to a couple of things I didn't write.

For example, I didn't mention sealing the joint - that's a different subject. Although, while we're on it, 1st hand experience is that crimping doesn't make joints leak. You've confused crimping with incompetence.

Do you replace every wrong fitting that you come across? I certainly don't, and I'd soon see myself on Rogue Traders if I did. I surmise that your hint is aimed at using soldered joints, but it really isn't practical to replace every 'incorrect' compression joint with a soldered one, is it? I'm asking rhetorically of course.

Nor am I talking about the rating of valves, taps and other devices and appliances. Nothing personal, but you seem to be stating the obvious there.

To answer your question about the sort of pressure, I'm merely talking about mains pressure. For example, at a recent job, the mains was so high that all the Hep fittings that I'd just installed actually creaked and visibly moved when the cold was put back on. Clear groungs for a limiting device, but there wasn't one there before I started, and the guy had leaks from all kinds of places in his Combi system.

Now then - tell me that you've never ever seen a compression fitting that had excused itself from the duty of staying put on a 15mm rising main? No? Maybe all the installations that you encounter were perfectly carried out? Or perhaps you just haven't seen enough action yet?

Whatever the cause of your strongly-held view, I think maybe an open mind is best in all circumstances.

Click to expand...

I know you didn't mention sealing the joint, but in that case perhaps you can tell me what the purpose a leaking joint is, since that would be a joint that is not sealed. I first mentioned that you couldn't get an olive off a pipe if the joint had been done up enough to neck the pipe. To which you replied that "crimping" a joint would stop the joint coming apart under mains pressure.

You talk about my having replied to things you haven't mentioned, where did I mention solder joints? This thread is discussing an olive puller, and these are on compression joints. Totally useless though if the pipe has been necked.

Perhaps your meaning of crimping does not result in causing a neck in the pipe, but if it does the olive puller will be useless.

You are very presumptuous to say I have a strongly held view and by implication a closed mind, perhaps your confining your post to the subject of the thread would help avoid confusion.

kevplumb said:

now then girls can we have a spot of calm prevailing

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Yeeeaaaawwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

oilman said:

I know you didn't mention sealing the joint, but in that case perhaps you can tell me what the purpose a leaking joint is, since that would be a joint that is not sealed.

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Er, what? No. I can't tell you the purpose of a leaking joint. What on earth are you talking about? You're not new to these postings, so why haven't you learned yet that sarcasm doesn't cross the Internet very successfully?

oilman said:

I first mentioned that you couldn't get an olive off a pipe if the joint had been done up enough to neck the pipe. To which you replied that "crimping" a joint would stop the joint coming apart under mains pressure.

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Yes. I did. I proposed that crimping is a sure-fire way of stopping a compression joint blowing off under mains pressure. I didn't say that it was the only way; sometimes, though, it is the best way.

My response was aimed particularly at your intimation that crimping is performed by people who don't think about what they're doing, whereas it is also carried out by people deliberately, for a specific reason. Was it really that presumptuous to say that you were being closed minded?

oilman said:

Perhaps your meaning of crimping does not result in causing a neck in the pipe, but if it does the olive puller will be useless.

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Just to clarify, my meaning of crimping *does* involve causing a neck - the neck stops the olive from moving, which stops the nut from moving, and thereby stops the fitting pulling off. It's very simple. And crimping isn't a religious ritual, it's just a technique to be used when the circumstances are right. For example, the pressure on any domestic tank fed system is not usually enough to to warrant crimping.

oilman said:

If you have that sort of pressure, you should be using a different type of joint...

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OK. So rather than risk getting presumptuous again, and make the wrong assumption about what you mean by "different", how about you just tell all of us what you mean?

oilman said:

You are very presumptuous to say I have a strongly held view and by implication a closed mind, perhaps your confining your post to the subject of the thread would help avoid confusion.

Click to expand...

Oh yes. I see. So you can refer to other plumbers as gorillas, and that is within the scope of the posting, whereas I can't talk express an opinion that you don't like. That's an example of what I call a closed-minded mode of thinking. If you don't want to be accused of it, then maybe you should stop doing it.

Inviting the original topic flirtily back onto the dance floor, I have an opinion about junior hacksaws, olive cutters, and olive pullers, which is that each tool has its ideal application. Therefore I have at least one of each. That way I can spend less time making disparouging comments about the work of plumbers who haven't had the opportunity to explain what they've done, and more time getting on with the job in hand.

Steady said:

agree with oilman-far too many gorillas out there-what are they tightening those nuts with-36" stillsons?

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Here we go again. Is this jape really so funny that it bears repeating so many times? You really don't have to apply much force to a 15mm joint, or even 22mm, to crimp a brass olive onto a copper tube. Did you ever wonder why so many compression fittings come with brass olives instead of copper ones?

Steady said:

would say the better tool for removing olives is the olive removing tool-made by the same people but which cuts the olive off the pipe-have worked it out and I would save £1.98 in junior hacksaw blades over the next 3 years if I bought one of these.

Click to expand...

Personally, my olive cutter saves me so much time that I can get jobs done more quickly and thereby visit more customers in a working day. And one way around the overhead of hacksaw blades it to charge for them. Or do you not charge for the materials and fittings that you use?

I doubt the gorrilas that neck pipes on vented systems, on the connections to radiator valves would be able to explain why they need it so tight to prevent it blowing off, AND on the top floor of a 2 storey building. That doesn't seem like reasoned actions to me.

Interesting that I can get a compression fitting to hold 10 bar on a hydraulic test for 30 mins, and I can still move the olive when I undo the joint.