I am looking at a couple copper pipe joints where a temporary copper cap was soft soldered in the normal way over hard copper water line. From the coloration the joints have obviously been overheated in the process of trying to desolder them. They swear that they used ordinary plumbing solder to solder them together and a third joint they had soldered at the same time with the same solder but did not do anything in the way of desoldering to, desoldered very easily with only moderate heat when I tried. It slid right apart as soon as it got hot enough for the solder to flow just like it's supposed to, but the other two (the overheated ones) will NOT come apart. I have tried grabbing the very end of the cap with pliers and pulling twisting etc and it will not budge. I am positive they have been heated enough that there is no way that soft solder by itself is capable of holding them together. Solder touched to the pipe next to the joint readily flows but the joint stays rock solid. The pipe is not distorted so it is not a crimp type effect jamming them together. It is obviously plain copper pipe there are no threads. The only thing around the joints is soft plumbing solder residue, which easily melted when the joints were heated. No sign at all of any hard solder/brazing and they say they just used ordinary plumbing solder. Could they have been over heated enough with MAPP gas to effectively weld the copper? I don't want to heat them much beyond the flow point of plumbing solder if I can help it because they are pretty close to the wall, and I don't want a fire or destroyed solder joint in the wall. Anybody seen this before?
- posted
17 years ago