Adventures under the laundry sink

And an old roll of asbestos paper, held up with thumb tacks, helps as well. I spray with water, tack up the paper, and spray that. And then I use a torch attachment (if I'm using propane) that's made to curl the flame around the pipe. The multi-tip heads made for this job still leave too much flame going up, in my limited experience with them.

But I use MAPP gas now, which tends to curl around the pipe pretty well on its own. And my roll of asbestos paper is so old that I can't unroll it without cracking it into little pieces. I bought it around 30 years ago. The wood in my house was installed 85 years ago and bursts into flame like it was soaked in kerosene.

There is some flexible cloth or paper made out of Kaowool now, which ought to do the job. One of the distributors is just a mile from me. I want to go check it out some time; until then, I can't be sure if it's any good.

Yep, the swirl-type MAPP torch flame I've been using for quite a while now, is much better than the basic pointed blue cone flame propane torch of years ago.

The larger diameter swirling flame provides much better overall heating for parts the size of common plumbing sweat fittings.

Slightly alkaline.

Not like when I was down in Devon. That was known to be plumbosolvent from history, to the extent that the water treatment works there actually pass the water over lime beds to raise the pH.

Mark Rand RTFM

Oatey makes a woven ceramic heat shield that works very well.

Yeah, but civilization depends on fire nonetheless. Use it or lose... civilization.

The 'shark-bites' are those grip/seal things, they would have gone on to the thinned copper fine, then it would have ripped in half later. Rebuilding in the case described was never gonna be as simple as a high-price fitting.

I found the "those" you referred to; I did, in fact, use that word. I shall amend my comment as follows:

"Shark-Bites are very pricey bandaids for those who can't solder, as well as for those who can but would prefer not to."

If a guy just has one repair to make and doesn't already have the skill and tools to make good soldered joints, the Shark-Bites are probably an excellent option. As for new construction and remodelling, I think that's all plastic now. Shark-Bites can provide a transition from old copper to new plastic.

On Oct 12, 11:01=A0am, Cydrome Leader wrote: =A0

If you can disassemble the cheapo valve, try just putting a good quality replacement washer in; a bad batch of rubber is not the end of the world (as the QC man said when he did the incoming inspection on the washers). Any nearby valves that look similar, probably need the same treatment.

True dat. Me, I have a bucket of old ones... it just takes a few minutes to see if they're better than new, or worse.

The Oatey blanket isn't Kaowool but it works fine and I think it's physically somewhat more robust than Kaowool. Kaowool is sort of a non-woven fabric. I'd worry a little about the ceramic fibers in Kaowool breaking with handling and getting into skin or creating respiratory hazard. See MSDS at