I have an American Water Heater, about 8 years old. Took out the thermocouple a few months back, sanded it, and put it back in and worked fine. At the time, found out about this left-hand thread issue so that was my fix then. Anyway the pilot light went out again recently and tried this fix. I used my rotary tool to cut but realized that only one cut wasn't big enough for the copper tube so I made two more cuts on either side of the original cut. Only then there was enough space for the tube to come out. Sure enough, this worked and I have hot water again! Thanks!