How to Solder Plumbing Valves
- 1). Turn off the main water line valve. This will cut the water to the entire house. Open up the faucets in a couple locations in the house to drain the water out of the pipes.
- 2). Use a pipe cutter to cut a section of copper piping out of the water line. For a ball valve it should be a 1 1/4-inch section. To cut the pipe, clamp a copper pipe cutter around the copper pipe, tighten the jaws so the rotating cutting wheel bites into the copper and swivel the cutter 360 degrees. Tighten the jaws a little more and swivel the cutter again. Repeat this until the pipe is cut all the way through. It'll take two separate cuts to remove the 1 1/4-inch section.
- 3). Drain any remaining water out of the two ends of copper pipe. Use paper towels to soak up any water on the inside mouth of the cut copper pipes.
- 4). Use a pipe cleaning tool to clean both ends of the copper pipe. Slip the tool over the outside of each pipe end and swivel it back and forth. The stiff brush bristles mounted inside the tool will clean the surface of the copper pipe.
- 5). Use the internal pipe cleaning brush at the end of the pipe cleaning tool to clean inside the valve where each cut end of the copper pipes will be inserted. Stick the tip of the brush first into one side of the ball valve and then the other. Rotate the brush back and forth to clean the inside surface.
- 6). Brush paste flux on to any cleaned surfaces--the outside ends of the clean copper pipes and the inside of the ball valve.
- 7). Stick the two copper pipe ends into the corresponding openings in the ball valve.
- 8). Rotate the handle of the ball valve to the open position--parallel to the copper pipes.
- 9). Put on safety glasses and light the torch. Hold the wire solder in the non-dominant hand. Position the blue tip of the torch at the first solder joint and heat up the valve and copper pipe where they intersect.
- 10
Watch for the flux to start bubbling. When it turns a gooey brown that means the metal is getting hot enough to melt the wire solder. Touch the tip of the wire solder to the joint. - 11
Watch for it to turn a shiny, metallic silver. The solder will melt shortly after that. It will take about a second for the solder to flow all the way around the joint. - 12
Pull the torch away as soon as the solder flows. Repeat Steps 9-11 for the second joint. - 13
Remove excess flux residue from the soldered pipe. Wait for the the copper pipe and ball valve to cool completely. Wrap a clean, dry paper towel around the pipe and rotate back and forth with the hand to wipe away the flux from the surface.
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