"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 22:57:22 GMT, "R.H." wrote:

It could be used for rubber tubes but the tool collector who sold it said
it
was for lead pipes, though I'm still trying to confirm this.

It's really quite a rare tool, because it's only used for joining narrow
lead pipes onto large ones - such as a bathroom basin outfall onto a
large-diameter toilet waste stack. They're used to expand a small radial
hole in a large pipe and their function is to make a flange, rather than
particularly to make the hole bigger. Those large vertical pipes have
generally been cast-iron rather than lead since before the war (in the
UK anyway) so this really is going back a bit!

These ones might be a Stanley #19 and are illustrated in older Stanley
catalogues.

The usual joint in lead pipe is a straight butt joint between pipes of
equal diameter. One of these pipes needs to be expanded too, so as to
fit over the other, but you do this using a greased fixed conical
expander, usually turned of boxwood and called a "turnpin", "button" or
"acorn". If you try to use this plier-style expander, the pipe will
split.


Thanks for the info.

Rob