70 year old shower control blocked up with lime scale

[Steve Jones]

Hi,

I have a magnificent brass and chrome shower control. Six inches in diameter, probably ten pounds of brass in all.

The problem is that the cold inlet is now down to a dribble and the family is feed up being lightly boiled every morning.

Both the cold and hot inlets have a removable cover that exposes a valve top with a screw slot. Both valves are rock solid and refuse to budge even with my bigest screwdriver. The shower inlets are in the airing cupboard and are connected to lead pipes that have been sweated on.

I'd like to try and fix it in situ if its at all possible.

Any ideas how I might go about it?

Thanks, Steve.

[dingbat]

I think you're going to have to take it off and tank it in citric aid

[conkersack]

What does that mean?!

[news]

if you have to ask and all that...

[conkersack]

/sneers/ ah, you just don't know.

[Steve Jones]

I think it's the correct term. When when lead pipes are joined a lower temperature "wiping solder" is used. The joint is built up slowly. It looks like a large smooth bulge in the pipe when finished.

Problem is if you get things to hot everything, pipe included, melts and hits to the floor. It's very easy to go badly wrong.

Steve

[andrewpreece]

It means there is no separate mechanical fixture used to connect the pipes to the block, like a solder ring or end feed fitting. Rather, the plumber used plumber's solder ( high lead content, has a pasty character within certain temperatures, rather than becoming liquid ) to build up a elliptical lump of solder that forms the mechanical connection. I think it's applied with a large stick of solder, and smoothed with a damp rag as you go along.

Andy.

[Mathew J. Newton]

Is it still under guarantee...? ;-)

[news]

muhahahahhaha ... k

[conkersack]

I think I know what you mean, cheers.

[conkersack]

Yeah, I know people who can't skin-up very fast either. heh.

Cheers.

[Mary Fisher]

Real plumbing.

Mary

>

[Andy Dingley]

Nothing. The joint will have been wiped, not sweated. You can't sweat joints in lead pipe (unless you used Woods' metal as a solder!)

Wiped joints are the standard soldering technique for lead. The solder you use is 20:80 (mostly lead) rather than the 50:50 solders generally used for copper pipe. This has a wide "pasty" range where it's a mix of solid and liquid simultaneously and where you can push it to shape with a greased cloth pad, before it finally solidifies.

A rare skill and getting rarer.

[John Rumm]

And no longer legal for pottable water IIUC.

Spose the op could always cut the pipes, take the shower off and soak in a bucket of Fernox DS3, and then refit using leadlok style connectors.

[Andrew Gabriel]

The Fernox will strip the zinc out of the surface of the brass. This doesn't matter, except that the brasswork will then be copper coloured rather than brass coloured. If that matters, might want to rig something up which only feeds the Fernox through the inside of the pipework.

I wonder if you can get a clip-on cover for a leadlok connector which makes it look like a wiped joint? ;-)

[Mary Fisher]

Yes. Spouse does it - as no doubt do you. He's proud of his work - as no doubt are you - but he mostly enjoys seeing the looks of wonderment on obervers' faces!

The reason real plumbing has become rare isn't the loss of the skill but because there's little demand for it. Copper has revolutionised 'plumbing'. And it is much easier, you must admit.

>

[Mary Fisher]

Potable water comes through the rising main on our system. The main is lead.

I don't know about pottable water.

Mary

[Huge]

Not in classic car restoration... Except they use greased wooden paddles rather than a cloth.

[Andy Dingley]

Not in years - just no call for it. If I'm making something from lead, I do it by led burning (welding). This is another rare skill, but still with a little demand for it from roofing.

Not sure I hold with all this new fangled business....

[Mary Fisher]

One of our friends makes the most elaborate decorative items by leadburning. I don't like most of them but he makes a living ... He is very skilled and in demand for headers for downpipes and the like for restored and listed buildings. Now those I DO like! And it's a joy to watch him, like all true craftsmen he makes it look quick and easy.

:-)

Things have never been the same since gunpowder was invented ...

Mary