Tony wrote in
:

EXT wrote:
JIMMIE wrote:
I don't usually have a problem sweating Cu pipe but this is a little
unusual. I need to put a coupling on a short pipe protruding from a
wall covered with ceramic tile. When I place the coupling on the
pipe the coupling extends back into the wall so I cant solder to it.
Removing the ceramic tile is a last choice, it is very old, nearly
100 years and I doubt if a match could be found. Getting to the
plumbing from the back side of the wall is also not a good choice. I
was thinking of drilling some solder holes around the perimeter of
the coupling to feed the solder into. I have experimented with this
technique on a couple of pieces of scrap and it seems to work OK.
Anyone here ever done something like this before.

Jimmie

One method would be to try a diamond hole saw, slightly larger than
the outside diameter of the pipe. Drill the hole around the pipe into
the tiles. This would make a neat but larger opening around the pipe
which may give you some extra room to solder. Fill with grout.

Another method is to locate some 1/2" outside diameter copper pipe.
It should fit snuggly inside the normally 1/2" inside diameter pipe.
With some carefull cleaning of the old pipe with a chuck mounted wire
brush made for copper fittings, you could clean the inside of the old
pipe and then solder a piece of the smaller pipe inside it as an
internal coupling allowing you to extend the old pipe enough to
solder on the fitting.

At one of the big box stores I saw they had copper pipe sized to fit
over the original pipe. Looked like it was marketed to fix burst
pipes.
Cut out bad section then slip new pipe over the old pipe. Maybe
it's
been that way all along but I never noticed?

That's called a "repair coupling/pipe".