I'm a total newbie at this stuff, but it shouldn't be this freaking
hard. All I'm trying to do is a simple repair on a 1" brass pipe. I've
cut away a section of the old pipe and I've got the new section ready
along with two 1" coupler fittings. I've never done any soldering, but
I've got a book that explains it and it didn't look that hard. I even
talked to people who made it sound like a really simple thing.

Well, my first attempt went really, really poorly. I couldn't get a
solid bead of solder around the joint. It was a total mess. So, I cut
that away, cut another section of new pipe, bought some more couplings
and tried again. I'm still having a similar problem. I can't get the
solder to go onto the pipe. It's really ****ing me off!

This should be simple. I sanded the fittings and applied soldering
paste, put the fittings together, heated them to the point where the
paste is bubbling, and then tried to apply the solder. Both sets of
instructions I've read said to stop applying heat at that point and
the solder should just go on easily. Well, I tried that and it isn't
working. Someone else said I should keep applying heat to the solder.
I tried that and it isn't working. It seems like no matter how much I
heat the joint or the solder, it won't stick to the pipe. It's like
the solder just breaks off into little chunks and falls right off.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? This is seriously ****ing me off and
I'm about to do some serious damage to my plumbing on purpose. This is
freaking simple stuff, yet I can't do it and I'm ready to put my fist
through a wall, which is a bad idea. I'd like to get this done without
breaking any bones.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
John