Soldering problem

[JTM]

[gigantic snip]

Almost a wiki in itself. But I still don't get the 'swirly/cyclone' bit

John

[David in Normandy]

You aren't kidding! It took me two hours at bricomarche working out which fittings / sizes etc I need. As for the range of stop taps Jesus H Christ! Especially since I am joining what I think is a 3/4 male through to 16 mm stop taps etc. Blooming nightmare. Literally hundreds of different fittings to choose from.

[Dave Osborne]

OK, with a conventional burner, when you offer up the blow-lamp to a cylindrical pipe, the flame front is bifurcated. If you think of (say) a horizontal pipe as having 4 "sides" (i.e. top, bottom, front, back) and you're applying the blow-lamp to the front, then the front gets the brunt of the heat, the top and bottom somewhat less and the back less still.

A swirly/cyclone burner applies a cyclonic effect to the gases which make up the flame and when you apply the heat to the front of the pipe (in the example above), the flame wraps around the pipe heating it pretty evenly all-round. This means that you don't have to wave the lamp about to heat the pipe evenly.

see here for pictures:

10

[JTM]

Thanks for the link. The range of stuff for the pro just boggles my mind. I know I'd never use them, but I'd like to have /afford some of them

John