Sweating Copper Pipes

Video Transcript

"Hey everybody Don Golden with Expert Village and we are working on our pipes. We have got pretty much everything ready to go. We have got our flux on. We have got our torch ready and our solder at hand and I am just going to fit these now and the flux makes this slide on really nicely so if you have got it up on there, they go in very easily just like that. Make sure when you're working, you've probably been putting them on your work table, but you need to keep them clean and if you get them dirty, wipe them off and reflux them. Now let's get to the fun part. I'm just going to mount this here, pop on the torch and I'm going to show you how to heat these up properly. That's a little noisy but the first thing you want to do is you want to put the flame right on the fat part of the joint. You don't want to heat the tube first you want to heat where it is doubled up. In other words the heaviest part of the copper. Once you see that start melting there that is when you know you are getting some heat. Take your copper wire and put a little hook on it like this and test it. See how it is melting now. The way copper works is the heat makes it go right up inside so once you are at the right temperature it sucks up inside and you go all the way around like this. You can see it going up there. See that. Heat it a little more and it goes right up inside. Go around the back and the bottom and do the same thing. Let's come around to this side now. Watch the camera there. Now this side is going to be plenty hot so you can test it just by doing that. Once around. You just sort of guide the copper along the edge and it melts as you move it. It will go inside if you are upside down or not. Now this is very hot so don't touch it. When we come back I'll show you how to clean this joint off a little bit."