Cheap copper tube delivered?

[ARWadsworth]

It is a flairing tool. It is still used to make the joints on a saniflow waste by the good plumbers instead of a straight connector.

Aam

[Andrew Gabriel]

Seems to be used for soldering copper aircon pipework.

I've seen a central heating installation where all the joints were flared.

[John Rumm]

Agreed. They were intended for use with "manipulative" compression fittings where the pipe had to be flared before being inserted into the fitting.

[YAPH]

Indeed: yesterday I took in a couple of builders' (rubble) sacks, one full of clean copper, the other brassiere (or whatever they call it: mixed brass & copper) expecting £50+ and got barely £20 :-(

[Bob Mannix]

> --

There are two sorts of flaring tools. The currently available flaring tools give an angled end to the pipe for compression fittings (as in the reference above and current tools for brake pipe flaring). The one the OP (and another) referred to are hammered into the end of copper pipe to make the end 10-20mm of the pipe have an internal diameter just larger than the normal external diameter. These new ends can then be used as end feed solder fittings when another piece of pipe is inserted into them.

One poster has mentioned a CH system done like this. I had a gas fitter run a 15mm gas pipe from the front of a house to the rear round walls etc indoors. He used no fittings at all, just bent the pipe and used the flaring tool to make joints where needed. He hammered it into the end of the pipe.

[dennis]

I think item # 34219 at

is what you are referring to.

They do the other sort too.

[Bob Mannix]

AHA! Very close but no cigar. This seems to be possibly a posh version of what I was talking about. Toolstation DO have the one I was talking about though, item #48296, that you hit with a hammer. Hooray and thanks for getting me close!

[Bob Mannix]

...and my apologies as it's called an expander/former, not a flaring tool. I was sure my gas fitter called it a flaring tool...

[Rod]

Has anyone actually used one of those? I was tempted ages ago when I was doing quiote a bit of plumbing, but seem to remember that they were much more expensive then.

Is it easy enough to just start using? Or is the path littered with failed attempts?

[Tim S]

Rod coughed up some electrons that declared:

Don't know, but I suspect annealing the end of tube with a blowtorch first might be in order - unless the tube came on a roll, it's fairly hard.

Cheers

Tim

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Indeed. Which is why I dislike calling it a flaring tool.

I'll use mine for joints which are likely to be inaccessible.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes. They certainly were expensive. I inherited mine.

They were much easier to use when tube was softer. With the current half hard stuff it's best to anneal first.

[Andrew Gabriel]

One that I've seen being used was quite different from both of these. I didn't look closely, but what I recall is something which clamped to the pipe (I presume, that's the bit I don't remember), and a car window winder type handle on the end was then used to screw a ball into the end of the pipe which was the right diameter to expand the pipe appropriately. (I imagine the ball doesn't actually rotate with the screw.) Looked quite easy to use.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) writes

The aircon engineer who installed a unit for us last year used a tool like that to joint the (10mm?) copper pipes which run from the wall unit to the external heat exchanger.