Soldering - from one newbie to another

[mike42]

Thought I might try and put something back into the forum after all the help I've received on it.

So, despite years of soldering copper pipe (not every day obviously but perhaps every year or so), I've always struggled. Until now. My current project has involved a fair amount of soldering and whilst my joints are definitely not pretty, I'm a lot more confident in them first time and I don't need to use Yorkshires anymore.

So what changed?

Well in all the countless descriptions of how it should be done and many videos showing it done I've never really understood one thing. I watched pros expertly move their torch around and darting in and out with the solder but whenever I did it I often ended up with globs of solder dripping on the pipe and not much going in the gap where it should go. I think I somehow thought I had to heat the gap with the solder on it all at the same time. Often in the videos the solder would be in the flame....

In case anyone out there has the dangerous combination of enjoying plumbing but having little in the common sense department like I do then the following might just help. Cleaning and fluxing is easy to copy but I didn't realise that the fundamental idea is to heat the pipe/fitting and then let the pipe/fitting heat the solder!! So by keeping the pipe/fitting at above metling point the solder literally flows in as it should do.

I know in retrospect all the guides out there probably do make that point but its one point among dozens and I never realised it. So now I know when soldering I need to get the pipe/fitting hot enough to melt the solder but not too hot so when it starts flowing I take away the flame - I can always add it again if it cools down too much. But the main thing I didn't realise was the pipe/fitting itself should be hot enough to melt the solder when they touch. The flame is only to get the pipe/fitting to temperature.

I hope that helps someone else even though I'm sure to many it sounds like stating the bleeding obvious.

 

[Diver Fred]

The other helpful bits of advice I can give after also struggling for years is as follows;
once the pipes and joints are clean 'paint' he flux on (keep an artists brush just for that purpose),
get as much pipework prepared joined as possible,
use the smallest flame that will stay alight,
heat the middle of the joints, touch the solder to the edge of the joint when the flux boils,
Little solder is needed but do check it flows (by capillary action) around the joint - you should see a 'silver' line all around the edge of the joint.

 

[cdbe]

Another amatuer here. I know to heat the fitting not the solder, but I'm not sure how long I can keep the heat on after its melted - l tend to remove it quite quickly but sometimes my "ring of silver" looks a bit incomplete and I wonder if I can have a "second" go at it?

 

[Dan Robinson]

If it's incomplete give it a little touch-ette of flux.

The trick to soldering is to learn how to "feel" the solder run. Combined with seeing it move into the fitting you soon know if it has run properly or not.

 

[terryplumb]

Keep heat on until a full ring of solder is visible around the fittings ends. If you don't have it ,and you turn off the heat, let it cool and then find you have an incomplete ring of solder ,then you haven't made a good job of it and should re do it to be on the safe side. Hope that answers your question ,regards Terry.

 

[mike42]

I might have spoken too soon! Well, I still feel reasonably confident but today I was soldering about 4 fittings in a row. Two were very close together and one of them leaked.... arrgghhh!!!!
I was resigned to chopping out a lot of the just-soldered pipe and fittings to redo it all then I remembered one of Tom's Tips. Well not exactly a tip but an investigation as to whether pipe can be soldered with water in it. I thought I had nothing to lose and was fortunate in that I could get most of the water out via gravity. Then I blasted the fitting with a strong flame until eventually it got hot enough for the existing and new solder to flow a bit. I put some more flux beforehand but whatever the reason both the existing and new did seem to get sucked inside and generally flow a bit round the fitting! After cooling down, I turned on the water and **** me it was watertight!

From the above post, I suspect that is not at all recommended but if you've got nothing to lose and a lot of time why not try it ?