"Andrew VK3BFA" wrote in message
...
On Aug 29, 2:52 pm, Don Foreman wrote:
I have been fascinated with flashlights since I was 2. My kids know
this, of course. For Father's Day this year they went together to
present me with a really excellent head-mounted task light. There
are lots of head-mounted lights but to date they've all been designed
by marketing because they behave like flashlights: they have small,
bright "spots" that are impressive in the store but about useless on a
task at arms' length or less. I designed and built two better ones 5
years ago, gave one to my friend in PA that still raves about it. The
technology has advanced noticably since then, and this model from
Surefire is absurdly pricey but it really is an excellent design that
works extremely well.http://www.surefire.com/SaintMinimusHS2-A-BK

So I wrote this to my kids to tell them about how well it worked on a
real job today.
----

I spent part of this afternoon on a plumbing job.

The leak I mostly fixed maybe 6 months ago got precipitously worse
over the past couple of days. I have had very minor drips just seal
up over time so I decided to see what this one would do. Didn't work
out that way. Gotta fix it right. Grabbed the Surefire wide-angle
100-lumen 3-watt LED electronically-regulated light-weight
easily-aimed superbly superior kick-ass head light (and a few tools)
and headed for the basement.

Illumination and visibility of the situation under the laundry sink
was excellent. It wasn't pretty. Lesser men might have quivered in
dispair at the sight of that starkly-limned site. But I'm PoppyDon
and I was there to plumb.

I disconnected the pipe, let it drain for a few minutes (it's about
the lowest pipe in the house, comes right off the water meter), popped
my semiautomatic MAPP torch and re-soldered the offending joint.
Reassembled the union to the water meter, turned the water back on.
Leak was same as befo same place, same size. In finest Minnesota
form, I thought "oh, golly." Man, I hate soldering problems like
that!

Turn off water, disassemble, leave to drain while I go to Depot for
a new valve.

Next step is to replace the valve, which was new six months ago but
Chinese. Brass and copper things will only tolerate so many
solderings before they get to some sorta amalgam of solder, copper,
zinc and unsolderablium that can cause outbursts of foul language,
psychological instability and perhaps musings about whether gunpowder
might work better than a Bernz-O-Matic torch -- or at least be more
satisfying. Depot is close and valves are cheap.

Got a ball valve this time, a little pricier than a gate valve but
still under 10 bux and an obviously superior valve. The guy at Depot
said I wouldn't be sorry, that valve would still be in excellent
condition 10 years from now. I said there's no way I'll be under the
@#$%#$ laundry sink soldering pipes 10 years from now. He said "you
don't think you'll be around 10 years from now?" "Oh hell yes, but
not under the freakin' sink. My wife asked me today if I didn't think
I'd reached the age where perhaps I should just pay someone to do that
job. My reply was NO!" She said "oh". He cracked up.

Upon close inspection of the end of the pipe with very good light I
noted a blemish. The onslaught of lumens from the head lamp wasn't
quite scouring it clean. I abraded it with Scotchbright. Blemish
still wouldn't go away. Inspected with hand flashlight. Hello, I see
light coming thru the blemish! Aha, THAT kind of blemish does not
tin well at all, not at all. I guess my little bitty leak that didn't
self-heal done eroded a wee hole plumb thru the copper in only a few
months.

Back to Depot to get a coupler. Cut 3" off the pipe, spliced in 3"
of new pipe. Yeah, I get a little extravagant under laundry sinks.
Resoldered the lot, reassembled the union to the water meter. Big
honkin' wrench, awkward place, wet, spiders but no water mocassins.
A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do. Turn on water.

This time it's drier than the history of teaching history. Hooahhh!
Polished hero badge. Claimed the many trips up and down the basement
stairs shagging tools and supplies were my aerobic exercise for today
and got no argument.

Thank you Don, another nice piece of writing. Your the voice of
"Everyday Sanity" on this group, a good anodyne to the nutters (yes,
me too sometimes) - your a good reference point, glad your here.
Andrew VK3BFA.




I totally agree Andrew, I get quite a bit of pleasure reading Dons posts.
Good on you Don.