Best Pipe fittings for DIY plumbing?

[Chris Bacon]

Bend it a bit more than you need, then "unbend" it. Springs are nice for large swept bends that are just about visible, e.g. under basins.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup - fine for that. But before I had a bender I tried doing the sort of tight bend you get with those, and couldn't retrieve the spring.

[[news]]

ever heard of braided flexis ? :-)

bah humbug, I reccon everyone ought to revert to filling tube wi' sand and bending it tha way us forebears used to....

RT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I was told to keep flow resistance to a minimum, to keep noise down. Of course perhaps not a problem with a tap connection.

Works very well too.

[[news]]

depends if they are ceramic mixers on the end of poorly affixed copper.

for people in the 40s. me ? I'm in the noughties.

RT

[Andrew Gabriel]

It makes a difference. Not having a pipe bender for 28mm copper tube, I fell back to using traditional methods. Anneal the pipe only where you want it to bend, pack it full of dry sand (molten lead is another option, but a bit more messy;-). Support the pipe either side of the bend on something soft (sand bags in my case), and gently step on the pipe at the point where you want it to bend. Worked perfectly, and it only bent at the anneal point, very nicely without crumpling.

If you have a pipe following the corner of a room, I agree. If you are referring to an offset for a radiator tail, I prefer the smooth bends of a pipe bender. Where a bend is out of sight, I'll use a pipe bender unless it makes the job much harder as it's generally fewer pipe joints, and the swept curve is lower resistance than an elbow (although not as much lower as you might guess).

One slight drawback of a pipe bender is it can only bend with one radius (at least, I've never seen formers for larger radiuses for same size pipe). Once or twice, when I've had a pair of pipes to bend in the same plane, my geometric mind wants the nested bends to have a common centre point in space, which you can't do as the outer one would need a bending radius equal to the inner pipe's bending radius plus the pipe spacing. You could do this with a spring bender. Once I did it by using an elbow for the inner bend and pipe bender for the outer bend, but that was dictated by circumstance, not for aesthetic reasons.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That's spoilt the story. ;-)

I love - once pro, but now more likely DIY - stories about how all stops were pulled out to solve what others wouldn't consider a problem.

[Chris Bacon]

Yes, they're horrible looking (and restrict flow).

[Huge]

In your (incorrect) opinion.

[Chris Bacon]

Erm, molten lead? How is that going to work?

[GB]

That's interesting. Never tried this before. What do you mean by redness? Copper tube is naturally an orange colour, so it's not particularly obvious (to me).

[Doctor Evil]

You heat the pipe with a powerfukl blowtorch (best use two) until "cherry red" and then quench it in water. It has to be cooled immediately.

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[Chris Bacon]

Until it's red hot. As you heat the tube, it will blacken in your gas flame - when you play the flame on the tube & you see a coppery patch in the flame, that's hot enough - you can look at the tube in dim light 'till you get the hang of it.

[Chris Bacon]

Hi Doctor Evil, if you quench the tube straight away, it makes it easier to clean off the black oxide, however the annealing effect will happen anyway if you just let the tube cool. This is much slower, though. Quenching of steel, for instance, is a different matter.

[Chris Bacon]

I re-open this to mention that when you bend the annealed copper, it will harden. You can anneal it again if this is a problem, however avoid "working" the metal excessively.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you do it in not too bright lighting, etc, it will be obvious when it glows red hot.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Doesn't make any difference with copper. Although you'll be able to handle it more quickly.

[Doctor Evil]

...once again he intejects....yes, he does...and he says....

...of course total and utter bunkem....was spaketh...what should be done is... "You heat the pipe with a powerful blowtorch (best use two) until "cherry red" and then quench it in water. It has to be cooled immediately."

......now that is much better.....I wonder if they have copper cabers.....

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[Dave Plowman (News)]

Go back to being the international man of misinformation. It suited you better.

What's your doctorate in? Certainly not metallurgy.

[:::Jerry::::]

immediately."

Surely you don't expect him to understand language like that Dave, he probably thinks you're referring to some form of illness !... :~(