On Sep 10, 3:01*pm, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Sep 10, 1:07*pm, Aaron Fude wrote:

Hi,

I'm practicing sweating 1/2" copper pipes, but I find that when
sweating on small fittings, such as a coupling or an elbow, I melt the
solder in the first joint when working on the second because they are
so close. What's the trick to avoid this problem?

Thanks,

Aaron

Make sure you are heating the pipe, not the fitting. This should heat
up the fitting enough to do both ends at the same time.

My rookie sweating story:

I had just added a T to an existing pipe when I needed to stop and
turn the water back on. I sweated a 1 foot section of pipe into the T
and then started to sweat a cap onto the end of the pipe. It took me a
little longer than it should have and just about the time the solder
was starting to melt, the cap shot off the end of the pipe like a
bullet and flew across the basement.

The wife wasn't happy about the melted carpet.

Was that because of the expanding air? Don't you solve that problem by
keeping a faucet open?