Soldering a New Outdoor Spigot

The outdoor faucet at the front of the house started leaking a couple months ago, just a slow drip, but continuous.  Additionally, the copper tube section leading to it has been sort of twisted ever since we moved in (certainly the result of someone over-torquing against it), which bothered me but didn't seem to be causing any problem.  This photo shows both a drip and the twist very clearly.

After ignoring it for a while, I decided to look into repairing it. I have taken off quite a few old soldered valves inside the house, but I have always replaced them with valves that have compression fittings. This was different because I was going to have to remove the twisted copper pipe and replace it with a new pipe, so in lieu of replacing the tee and possibly more parts, soldering was the only real option.

So as I often do, I went to the Internet and found some simple instructions on eHow. This guy's video told me everything I really needed to know.

http://www.ehow.com/video_4767454_sweat-copper-pipe-fittings.html

I already had a propane torch and standard tools, but I bought the new parts, plus a wire tubing brush and lead-free flux and solder.  I have cut copper pipe with a hack saw before with good results (just have to be very careful not to crush it), so I didn't buy a pipe cutter.  Here are all the assembled parts and tools.

The original spigot was soldered onto the copper pipe directly with the threads on the outside.  I bought an adapter so that the new spigot could be removed and replaced without soldering if it begins to leak.

Soldering the adapter onto the tube was really easy.  Since I had the spigot attached to it (giving me something to hold onto), the spigot got pretty hot and the paint on the handle bubbled a bit.  But since the spigot is threaded on, I can just unscrew to replace it if it wears out faster from getting too hot.

Next came the really difficult part, removing the old spigot.  If you watched the video, you will remember that you want everything to be dry so that you can get the parts hot enough.  This turned out to be really important, and it also turned out to be impossible, because the main valve below the tee was also leaking very slowly.  So I had a slow drip coming out of the spigot.

If you imagine a pot of water heating on a stove top, when you get the pot and the water to 212 ºF, the water boils off as steam.  Since there is only a certain amount of water in the pot, when it all boils off, the pot quickly gets hotter than 212 ºF if enough heat is being applied.  In this case, I essentially had an unlimited pot of water.  When the temperature got hot enough, it boiled out of the spigot, but there was more cool water filling the tee from behind because it was leaking through the valve below.  Water has a tremendous heat capacity (unlike metals), so it takes a lot of heat to raise the temperature of water.  This is the concept behind things like automobile radiators; just keep running cool water through your engine and it will not overheat.  But since I was trying to get the soldered joint up to 350 - 840 ºF (probably closer to the high end of that range) and the trickle of water was trying to keep it down around 212 ºF, I simply could not make enough headway to melt the old solder.

So I went to the main valve by the street and closed it also, then I bled out the pressure from the valve below the tee.  And it still leaked.  The leak was much slower, so I tried again with the torch.  I adjusted the flame and moved it around to try to apply the strongest possible heat to the joint.  After a while, I could tell that it was finally about to start melting because a stray speck of solder on the surface of the pipe turned silvery.  So I kept at it and used my adjustable pliers to try to twist the spigot free.  The spigot actually came free from the tube before the tube came free from the tee, even though I was applying heat directly to the spot where the tube met the tee.  I had a brief moment of anxiety that I wouldn't be able to remove the tube from the tee without damaging the tee and creating a bigger job, but it eventually twisted free also.

The total time spent on removing the old spigot and tube was probably close to an hour, which accounted for the bulk of the job.  I was fairly surprised that I never ran out of propane.

The last step was to solder the new tube into the tee.  There was still a slow drip of water to complicate matters, and I was only able to apply the flux to the tube and not the tee, which was too wet inside, so I made sure there was plenty of flux on the tube.  With my recent practice at using the flame with high effectiveness, the soldering wasn't as bad as the removal had been, although it did take a bit longer than the dry soldering I had done earlier.  Since I was barely able to get to the temperature I needed, the final result was also much less even and clean.  You can see some beads of solder that fell onto the concrete drip catcher below the assembly.

But it does the two things it is supposed to do: it doesn't leak, and it holds the pipe together.  So the solder definitely worked its way into the joint.  So far, so good!  And now I know how to solder a copper pipe, and I have learned the importance of working with dry parts.

Debra's Dream Leg

In the mid-1980's, Lynn Williams, my father, sculpted a larger-than-life 5-piece fragmented female body in stoneware.  It included a head, a torso, a leg, a partial leg with hands grasping it, and a thigh with a forearm across it.  The complete work was titled "Debra's Dream" because it was based on a dream that his sister had described to him.  In the dream, the subject was separated into pieces and scattered in a landscape, with feelings of being lost, trapped, and broken.

The pieces are all very thick and sturdy, with networks of support structures running along their inside surfaces.  The limiting factor in their size was the size of the kiln that had to hold them for firing; the head and torso were both about as large as could possibly fit.  These pieces have also spent some time outdoors, and they are virtually weatherproof.

The sculpture was displayed in its intended form for a period at Uptown Gallery, my parents' business in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  The pieces were set onto wooden pedestals with a thin layer of sand.  The two legs stood together, one standing on the sand, and the second buried midway up the calf.  I may be able to add photos of this display at some point in the future.

When Lynn passed last year, I came into possession of "Debra's Dream," minus the head.  I believe the head must have been sold separately (if you know who owns the head, I would like to find out!).  In the photo below, the four remaining pieces are on the floor.

Three of the pieces have elegant standing positions as-is (the torso and the leg with hands both stand upside down).  In the pictures below, you can see how we have displayed the leg with hands and the thigh and forearm on a shelf next to the stairway.  Currently there are Christmas lights, but in the future we intend to install track lighting above the stairs.

The fourth piece, the full leg, with its angled foot, needed additional support to be displayed in a standing position.  In the gallery, it was held by an internal wooden pole (a broomstick, I think) that was inserted into the pedestal.  So my concept was to make a very simple base that holds the leg upright with a rod.  The hole in the foot is exactly the right size to fit a 2 x 4 board at an angle slightly off perpendicular to the ground.  So with a little measurement and a little trial and error, I cut a piece of 2 x 4 at the correct angle and bolted it securely to a 24 x 24 inch piece of thick plywood.  Then I cut a piece of threaded steel rod to fit as high into the leg as possible and drilled a hole in the 2 x 4 at a steep angle (again partially measured and partially guessed because it is very difficult to judge the exact angle of the rod inside of the leg).  I used threaded rod because I had initially envisioned screwing it into the 2 x 4 for a tight fit, but in practice it was actually easier to give it a loose fit as long as the hole in the 2 x 4 was deep enough to hold it securely.  Below are pictures of the assembled base with and without the leg.

In order to determine that the base was going to provide good enough support and not slowly bend or separate, I left the leg standing on it for a couple of weeks.

After proving to myself that it would work, it was time to finish the base.  I got out the jigsaw and cut out an oblong shape that I had drawn freehand.  The longest part of the base points in the direction that the leg leans, in order to make it as stable as possible with a small footprint (ha ha).

Next I used a coarse grain sandpaper to smooth and round the top edge around the base.  I did not bother with a finer sandpaper because the plywood has some deep wood grain that was going to stay regardless, and I planned to paint the board.  I really just wanted to get rid of the sharp edge and leave an otherwise natural look to the surface.

Next it was time to spray paint.  This photo is after one or two coats.

Here is the final base with the rod inserted.  See how nice that wood grain looks?

And here is the final piece from multiple angles.

From the top you can see how the lean matches the shape of the base.  The center of gravity is well within the area covered by the base.  The sculpture thus gives the illusion of leaning too far but it does not try to tip over.

 Thanks for looking!