Measuring solder

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Krow

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When I was just learning, a journey man said to me,
"If you play with fire long enough, eventually you are going to get burned".
At the time I didn't know what he meant.................. Until I found out the hard way

So I would have to say , the latter :p
Or: you did burn yourself, but your wife won't let you use it as your excuse?
 

Mikey

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Is this you?

Here's a picture of a wife getting her husband ready to do a little plumbing:
asbestos suit.jpg
 

Rob223

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As my soldering gets better and better, I am now at the stage of measuring off my solder to get the best, most pretty joints. I mark pencil lines on the solder to guide me.

For 1/2" pipe I use 1/2" of solder.

For 3/4" pipes I use 3/4" of solder.
Hmm have you really not noticed the big difference in area going from a 1/2 to a 3/4 fitting its alot more than 50%. I have not done the math but if a 1/2 joint really takes 1/2 inch I would think a 3/4 would take closer to 1inch due to much more of an area to fill, 3/4 fittings are much deeper than a 1/2 fitting. Taking pride in your work is one thing but theres a time and place percision, like work that will be in an exposed public area vs. under a floor or in a wall, lifes to short to get that anal about ROUGH work. FINISH work is whats appreciated. BUT to each his own!
 

Mikey

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Good guess

I have not done the math but if a 1/2 joint really takes 1/2 inch I would think a 3/4 would take closer to 1inch due to much more of an area to fill, 3/4 fittings are much deeper than a 1/2 fitting.

Assuming the solder flows to the same thickness in both joints, the 3/4" joint should take slightly over 2 times that of the 1/2" joint, based on a random sample of 2 fittings. The joint is not only wider in diameter, accounting for 1.4*, it's also longer (~1.5*).
 
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