Hi there....
I'm going to cut short a piece of lead pipe that's used for mains cold. I need to cap the end of the lead (it's a branch off the main pipe and not used) and tried the "folding over and flattening" technique, which looked like it worked, but a few hours afterwards it weeps a little.
I was thinking of heating up a piece of metal to act as a soldering iron and using that to melt the end of the lead pipe. thus sealing it.
Any advice?
Cheers
Simon
You will need some flux to get it to run together.Make sure the edges to be joined are bright and clean.
If that doesn't work, join it to a small piece of copper tube and cap that off....I had to do something like that years ago...
I watched my dad do this about 40 years ago. He cleaned the lead inside and out - I think he had to swage the lead to get a short length of 15mm copper a tight fit inside - then fluxed it all and wiped a solder joint with a blowlamp and asbestos pad. Then capped the copper with a compression-end.
Apart from the asbestos pad (there is a modern equivalent), you could do the same today.
R.
soldering
previous experience, and it is easy to fill up the pipe with solder! The basic method is to tin the end of a piece of copper pipe, and flare the lead to take it such that it is a good tight fit but leaving a funnel of lead arround the copper. Then gently, everso gently warm the scraped clean and fluxed lead and copper feeding with bar solder, aiming for a temperature where the solder is 'pasty' but will fuse to the lead and the tinned copper. When the funnel is full, build up a cone round the copper and wipe it smooth with a flux impregnated cloth (should be moleskin!)
If this daunts you there is a range of compression fittings called 'leadlok' that grip the outside of the lead pipe with brass serrations and seal using an 'o' ring though I must say I've not found them infallable.
AWEM
No, I just used a Johnson coupling.
Apparently this method is no longer water council approved anyway. So leadlok connectors or similar are the way to go.
Works quite well with a small crucible of molten solder that you "splash on" as well.
The one I have used seem ok (can't remember if it was an official "leadlok" though), but you do need to do them up very tight.
Learn something new every day. R.
It's what the PM advised, a long time ago. We've moved since then, but the old house is 50 yards away and it's still connecting the pipes AFAIK....!
Thanks for all the replies... the melting the pipe option was soon discarded and I went immedialtey to plan B - lead line (like lead lok, apparently). Had to have two goes to make it watertight - the first attemp the outside of the pipe was not perfectly round and smooth... after much medium-then-fine sanding the second attempt sealed it fine.... fingers crossed itstays that way! I'll be ripping out the lead at some point, so only needs to last until then!
Thanks again for all the help!
Simon
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