In article ,
Gordon Henderson writes:
So have been doing a bit of plumbing recently to install a new hot water
tank and tidying up a lot of old stuff leftover from what appears to
be many years of job on job on job ... And I've found quite a few pipe
joins that are made without a sleeve - they have expanded one ond of a
pipe just enough to push the next section in, then solder.

Is this a technique of olden times as I'm not sure I've seen it before.

It's an expanded pipe joint. They never were that common with
water plumbing, and with time being money nowadays and the common
fittings costing peanuts, verses the time spent expanding the pipe
and the thought you have to put into doing it before installing the
pipe, it's well out of favour now with regular plumbing.
Still used with aircon pipework though.

It does seem to make for a neater join with only one soldering required
as opposed to both sides of a sleeve... Is there a magic tool to expand
the end of the pipe without it splitting?

Yes, a tube expander.

--
Andrew Gabriel
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