Hi all,
Does anyone know if electric hot air guns like this:
thanks for your help
No, they are not.
The main disadvantage is that you won't be able to solder with the hot air gun.
That'll be one of these:
this:
Nowhere near hot enough.
Jon.
I did all mine (up to 28mm copper) with a £10 blowtorch, and it worked no problem at all. I can't imagine a hot air gun will have the power or ability to concentrate the heat where you want it (or the ability to see where the heat is going at all).
=================================== One of these or very similar can be bought from almost any DIY / Hardware shop including B&Q, Wickes etc. Refills are available:
Cic.
cheers for that - saved me lots of frustrations ...
That's what I thought - I got the impression that's it's do-able when reading about steinel heat guns:
these:
That's because it's a professional heat gun designed to solder pipe and the price reflects this. From the picture it would still take an ice age to solder 28mm pipe with the thing.
Dunno about soldering, but I just bought the DW340 (for melting beeswax and propolis off beehive frames, so I wanted fine adjustment of temperature, rather than hot / very hot). Amazon were cheaper than Screwfix or Toolstation if you take their free delivery option.
The very one I use. Good bit is you can get the gas cartridges almost everywhere. You will probably find a heat resistant soldering mat useful as well
B&Q are doing them for £22 although they were £19 just a few weeks ago when I picked one up.
Hey what a good idea - I get fed up scraping the wax off. Thanks for that one.
Rob
================================== A bit of light gauge mild steel ( 20g - about 9" square) is a suitable alternative. It can be bent to any convenient shape to reflect the heat and lasts for years.
Cic.
It works really well. Apparently they can also be used for uncapping at a low setting -the wax cap is so thin capilliary action pulls it back to the outside of the cell as it melts.
Why do you think it would be?
The disadvantage is it won't melt solder.
Then use what everyone else uses - a blowlamp. The electric clamp types are near useless too.
Your only real decision is which blowlamp to buy. If you will use one a lot, then the type with a separate gas cylinder and a hose to the torch is more expensive but cheaper to run.
For just this job and occasional blowlamp tasks there's a vast range. I'd go for one where the re-fills are readily available.
Which one please as the link gives (for me) 3 different blowlamps?
Also, as I am a novice with soldering plumbing, can you give me a rough guide as to how many joints a cylinder should do in (say) 22mm pipe? (I shall apply my own divide-by-3 'cos I'll need to practice factor - unless 3 is not enough.)
Mine - which uses those squat pierceable canisters - would do so many you'd not bother counting. Certainly no need to have more than one spare canister per day given normal rates of one man working - but Screwfix sell them in packs of 5 anyway.
Worth also laying in a supply of disposable lighters for lighting the blowlamp - I reckon these are cheaper and more reliable than the self igniting kind.
One tip you may find useful - spare ceramic tiles no longer needed are handy as heat shields.
================================== The lowest of the 3 illustrations shows a 'generic' blow lamp available almost anywhere and the cartridges are also readily available. This is the one for most people who don't need something for constant heavy use. Look on the shelves of your local DIY store and you'll find one. 'Taymar' is a common name.
I can't help with a specific figure for number of joints from one cartridge (depends on so many variables) but I can say that they're not so short-lived that you need to worry about constantly running out.
Cic.
I take it you haven't tried that yet but that would be a real winner - uncapping is a real messy pain and then you have to sort all capping plus the attached honey. Could do with it this weekend too as the rape is going over and the honey will have to whipped off. Thanks for the heads up on that.
Rob
If you are a novice practice first before soldering in anger. Tube and bulk end feed fittings are cheap enough to allow this. After soldering a trial say 22mm tee, take it apart by re-heating and see how well it has tinned. One tip is to watch the colour of the flame - it goes sort of green when the copper is hot enough.
TH2000PZ.
How many? Not a Scooby! I bought my blowlamp in November last year and I changed the original cartridge 2 weeks ago.
Cartridges are easily available though - buy two when you buy the blowlamp & when the first one runs out buy another as a spare - that way you always have a full one in reserve.
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