Copper Pipe Sweating Tools

Video Transcript

"Hey everybody, Don Gold back with you at Expert Village and we are talking about copper piping and how to work with it. The first thing you have got to do is get yourself the right tools and there are a few things involved here, number one being a torch. Now this is a gas canister, this, now this is torch mate, okay. There is propane gas and there is mat gas. Now you can use the propane but I prefer the mat gas. Mat gas is a hotter gas which means that you are going to get a hotter gas which means a quicker solder or sweat as we call it. Here is your torch. You just basically put this on here, okay, screw it in and you are ready to go. It has an adjustable nozzle here that will give you either a hotter or cooler flame depending on what your needs are. Now on to the next. Before you solder pipe, you've got to cut it. This is the tool for cutting pipe. It is very easy to use. You can adjust it up and back with this tool right here. It cuts almost up to an inch. I think this will cut an inch and a quarter pipe. Today we only need it for a half inch so basically you adjust it, you put it around the pipe this way and you go around and around until it is cut. You can get this at any hardware store. The next thing you are going to need once you cut your pipe is you have to clean it. We have several cleaning tools. This is an emery cloth and you use it to wipe and clean the ends of the pipe. Now this is a wire brush. Now this is used for cleaning inside of a pipe as such. You always want to clean the pipe really good, this gets it ready for the solder. You always want to rough it up. Again this is the same kind of a cleaning tool for the ends. This is a little large but again it does the same thing. You put it on there and rotate it. It cleans off the ends. You really want to make sure that you do this on every piece of copper. You want to do this so that the flow rate and the coverage will be perfect. Okay the next thing of course is solder and this is lead free solder which is pretty standard nowadays because we are really trying to keep the environment good. The next thing is flux. Flux is a paste and this makes your solder flow evenly. You coat all of the sides and edges with it. This is a reaming tool that actually can refine your cuts if you need it but you don't always need it. Here is a brush, that is an applicator for your flux and that's it, those are your tools."