Copper waste?

[secret squirrel]

Had to replace a basin yesterday and the waste was copper, the new plastic waste was slightly too big so re-newed it all to the drain. Seemed to be the quickest solution, as opposed to trying to fix seal it somehow.

My question is (probably to the older members) why was copper used as a waste? surely, there must have been a cheaper way? when did plastic waste take over?

 

[billybongo]

squirrel i think plastic as such probably didnt exsist , it was all the good old materials such as lead , copper , castiron just progress from old to new materials .

 

[Bernie2]

Err! Old enough to know.

Before copper it was lead. They used copper sparingly probably because of price, but it was a better job than lead, because it did not kink or get damaged so easily. They stopped using it some time in the early sixties late fifties. But was still used on high class jobs for quite a while.

Plastic really came into use in the sixties. It was up here anyway, seemingly mostly Osma, Key Terrain or Marley.

In the early sixties I remember renewing lead waste pipe with lead. Interesting job, but time taking. And large scale sites where lead was used for the water mains into the seventies. So its not as long ago as you might think.

 

[stevetheplumber]

Had to replace a basin yesterday and the waste was copper, the new plastic waste was slightly too big so re-newed it all to the drain. Seemed to be the quickest solution, as opposed to trying to fix seal it somehow.

My question is (probably to the older members) why was copper used as a waste? surely, there must have been a cheaper way? when did plastic waste take over?

didnt think plastic took over till the mid to late seventies i started in 72 and it was all copper wastes at that time both domestic and comercial and all cast iron stacks caulked with lead then time saver started to appear on big site work .boy was i glad to send those caulking irons to the scrap yard
last bit of caulking i did was some water mains in the west end but we used lead wool rather than a pot

 

[Bernie2]

HI! Steve,

You are about right for widespread use of plastic, but we used plastic from about the mid sixties. Even on the biggish housing sites it was an odd mix of cast iron soil stack's and plastic wastes. I suppose you could really say it was phased in rather then started all at once.

I started in 61.

I think we must have overseen a plastic revolution since then.

 

[secret squirrel]

thanks for that, I'd have thought plastic would have come in much earlier than the 70's. You learn something new every day.

Purely out of interest can any of you remember the cost for a length of copper waste (any size) when it was being used?

Was it difficult to fit?

 

[Plouasne]

When I started on the tools in London, in '57, it was mostly Central London, shops and small office blocks, (one of the first jobs I worked on was a redevelopment in Carnaby street, Soho), it was all cast iron drainage, cast iron soil stacks, lead shorts for the w/c's and urinal slabs, mostly copper for the range of basin wastes, and copper for the services, with galvanised iron cold water storage tanks, (mostly out of 1/8" steel plate, and what a sod that was to cut with a brace and a one legged tank cutter!), blacked out inside with 3 coats of bitchumen paint after "tank busting", all the tank connectors had full wrapped hemp grommets, bath, basin and sink wastes together with the taps were set in with a mixture of red and white lead putty, with a sheet lead washer between the backnut and the china scored on the side closest to the china, the excess was turned up around the basin waste with a small hammer and then cut back to around an eighth of an inch upstand, the taps had a small sheet lead "packing piece" wrapped around the lugs of the valve to hold it firmly in the square hole in the appliance, black iron pipe (barrel) was used for gas and central heating, galvanised iron was used for the services on cheaper jobs, iron pipe with special waste fittings, (the sockets were formed so that there was a smooth flow of water in the pipe) was used for rough service places like barracks, engineering works etc, together with fireclay sanitary ware, vitreous china was used in high class work and earthen ware was the norm for house plumbing

I did one of the first Osma plastic soil stacks in Ealing around about 1967 and had to get a 10 year guarantee from Osma before it was allowed by the sanitary inspector

Anybody remember the Osme hot water cylinders ?? made out of two pieces of plastic stuck together, the only good thing about them was that they only lasted about 5 years if that before they came unstuck at the join, and a proper cylinder had to be fitted

 

[REDSAW]

marley compression fottings fit those copper waste traps if i remember right.

thinking about it, i have the luxury of both in my bathroom it has a copper coloured plastic waste traps.

 

[danielp]

and mc alpine do

 

[billybongo]

A company called bartol used to do copper coloured waste to and it push fitted over the old copper if you needed to keep some copper in place .

 

[Bernie2]

EEEK! Somebody said BARTOL coppertone. The rings went soft after about 12months and they leaked like mad, usually.

No idea of the price of copper waste pipe then, worked for companies and they supplied the pipe.

 

[Phil]

I have to say I've been plumbing for nearly 2 years now (no time at all I know ) and I've yet to see a copper waste. I've seen a few lead ones though.

How did you ever manage with all that lead pipe? We don't know we're born these days!! Did it come in rolls/8ft lengths??

 

[Bernie2]

Hi! Phil,

Mostly in roll's of varying length. What you usually had to do is: Unroll length required allowing for bends.

Then get a bobbin, warm pipe and tamp bobbin through to get it into shape.

For a bend you could use a spring, it was different than a copper spring and the coils of the spring where round on the outside edge the copper one are flat.

Another way was with a hammer and bobbins of various diameter.

You threaded the bobbins on the rope starting with a small one in front and the last one the finished pipe diameter. You then dropped the rope end through the pipe. Then bent the pipe to part of the required radius, then pulled the bobbins through. Then bent it a bit more and pulled the bobbins through. You did that as many times as required to get the bend.

I suppose you could have sand bent it, but that would be a lot of fiddling about.

I preferred the spring.

The 1/2" (15mm) and 3/4"(22mm) water pipe came in 1cwt (about 50kgs) rolls and was shaped by hand and dressed into place. It meant long radius bends.

Straight couplings where tamped out with a tampin then rasped and shave hooked clean with bloc black ends, tallowed, clamped together then soldered with Plumber's solder.

A branch was augured out then the sides dressed with a bent bolt, then cleaned, bloc blacked and sweated or wiped with solder.

The lead sheet for flashings came in 12' x 10' sheets. Your knees nearly buckled carrying them. And all the flashings where cut out of the sheet.

The good old days! It was heavy graft.

 

[Plouasne]

Bernie,

I am reminiscing now

From what I remember of that almost forgotten art of lead work, I will start from seeing both lead sheet and pipe being cast and extruded in the lead mill

For sheet lead, there was a casting table about 6 foot by 8 feet and 6 inches deep with 4 removable L shaped lugs 2 on each long side, the joints were filled with fire clay, and the lead was cast into the table, when it had set, the lugs were removed and a crane was used to pick up the still hot sheet via U shaped lugs, the slab of lead was then placed onto a set of rollers in front of the mill (it looked like an overgrown "washing mangle") behind the mill there was another set of rollers, on either side of the set of rollers there was a circular saw blade, set in a sliding trough
The slab of lead was passed between the rollers, which were closed together until the required thickness was achieved, at times between the rolling the saw blade was run up and down the edges of the lead, to trim off the excess lead at the side of the roll, then when the sheet was the required thickness, the top end of the lead was trimmed by a person with a draw knife, and the first inch or so was placed in a slotted round bar, which was rotated to roll the lead sheet into a roll, whilst the lead was being rolled up the person with the knife was cutting the roll to the required length, 40 feet for a full roll, 20 feet for a half roll, this was then tied up with a hemp cord in 3 places
Sheet lead came in different thickness's by weight per square foot; 3lb, 4lb, 5lb, 6lb 7lb 8lb, anything over that was called plate lead, we nearly always used 5lb lead, on site, 7lb was about the best for bossing because it was thicker, but harder to work, whilst 3lb was too thin to work with and only fit for soakers

For lead pipe, the press was set in the ground and was about a foot across, the head of the "die" was clamped into place, the die had a roller which rotated with the lead passing the "die", also the "die" had a steel mandrel, the size of the pipe bore, held by 3 steel stays, from the outer edge of the "die", over the extruding press and just to on side there was a C shaped frame of rollers, at the far end there was a windlass
When the lead was cast into the press, and the "die head" had been clamped down, and the lead had set, the press was started the lead pipe came out of the press like tooth paste, the first couple of feet was cut off by a person with what looked like a table knife, because it was not a pipe but a solid rod of lead, then the person placed a cord over the lead pipe tieing it to the pipe with a clove hitch, the cord was lead over the C frame to the windlass, and two people started to wind the pipe into a coil of lead pipe

Lead pipe came different wall thickness and was sold by diameter / weight per foot, IE: 1/2 inch 5lb, or 1/2 inch 7lb; 3/4 inch 7lb, 3/4 inch 9lb

Which reminds me of a tale to tell, and that is even 50 years back, coppers were "bent", my mate was told to go to another job in the morning and was cycling home, with a coil of lead pipe on his shoulder, which was wanted for the job in the morning, when he was stopped by a "copper", who would not believe that the lead was wanted the next day, and "nicked" him it took the supervisor who drove to the station to get him released from the cell, but the police would not release the lead pipe, they said that he would have to go to the station in the morning to collect it, when he arrived at the station the next day, and asked for the lead pipe he was given about 6 inches of lead pipe, instead of the 10 feet the there was the night before, when he said that it had been nicked, he was given the station book to look at, the entry into the book was one piece of lead pipe!!, without the length of the pipe

Once the plumber was on site the first thing after being given a "shop" to work in, was the carpenter had to make up a bench for the plumber, made out of 8 x 2, at least 10 foot long (my mate once walked off the site because the general foreman was not going to allow the carpenter the time to make up the bench), then once installed with the pot lamp going if it was cold, work started, when the sheet lead arrived the performance started, (remember that a full roll of 5lb lead weighed the best part of 3/4 of a ton, 1600lbs), first a place was chosen for the sheet lead, then the floor was hard broomed, then sheets of plywood were laid down, for the lead to be unrolled on, this was then broomed off, then closely inspected for nails sharp stones etc, if the inspection of the plywood was OK, the lead was unrolled, the apprentice was then told to help set out the cut marks with the aid of a chalk line, but first take your shoes off if you are going to walk on the lead, I soon learnt after being hit with a dresser a few times
To cut the lead sheet a hook shaped "Draw knife" was used, first the tip of the knife was put in the mouth to give the end of the knife a bit of lubricant, and then working backwards on your knees the knife was drawn down the chalk line, and god help you if you so much as deviated from the chalk line by so much as a 1/16 of an inch, when the cut was deep enough, the cut piece was rolled up, again god help you if you rolled faster or slower than your mate because the lead would go off course and stretch on side so thinning that part of the lead

My old mate said to me once, I don't mind what time you get here, but when I arrive I want the shop to be warm, and my overalls to be warm for me to put on!, it was the same performance every morning, a few minutes before either 8 am summer time or 7.30 winter time, my old mate would turn up, put his overalls on roll a ***, then say "better go and have one then" of he would toddle to the bog coughing and spluttering, for half an hour, then say its not like the old days

The old days were from what I've been told, were from the first few years of the 1900's, when it was a 6 am start, breakfast was egg and bacon cooked on a clean shovel over a coke brazier, served at the bench covered with a clean painters dust sheet, the day was a 12 hour day, and the week was either a 6 day or a 51/2 day week, when I started it was a 51/2 day 56 hour week, for less than two quid a week, I can remember my father in about 1952 having a £5 note in his wage packet, and holding it up to the light saying I wonder if its genuine, this was the old "blanket" type note, white paper with black printing, his wage then was less than £10 a week

Plumbers today!!, you don't know your born, the job has gone soft, remind me to tell how the plumber was the "king" of the trades, and how he was respected when it came to sheet lead work or pipe work, and how the plumber treated the finished job with pride

 

[Phil]

Damn good read.

 

[oap67]

I remember getting in the middle of the night and screwing a self tapper in the poprivet to last till the morning in these Osma cylinders. Client was not a happy bunny the cylinder had lasted 18 months.

 

[Winston]

Incredible we really have got it easy today, the work and skill that would have taken. Know wonder some TS really are not happy, we dont even to a eighth of that workmanship. I bow to those that have done that sort of work. And thanks for the information very interesting

 

[Plouasne]

Lead work from the olden days as told to me, by my mate, who started on the tools about 1912, in case I forget in my dotage

During the first world war, lead was in short supply, (the lead was diverted to make bullets and other things to do with the war), so plumbers had to improvise to some extent

Lead traps which were normally made by extruding the lead out of a press, and changing the pressure on one side or the other to make the pipe turn to form the trap, were in short supply, so the plumbers had to make their own traps, by bending the lead pipe, and to get a tight bend they cut their bobbins in half to reduce the radius of the bend

Cast iron water mains were yarned in the normal way, but harder and tighter, then the joint was cement filled, hence the term its the yarn that makes the joint, if I was doing cast iron drain, my mate would stand on a yarned joint to see if it would move, if it did, it would have to be redone to his satisfaction

His saying was when the scrap lead came from the yard to be melted down for caulked lead joints, was half for the job half for me, the lead is only the dust cover, and he would moan like hell if there was more than half an inch of lead in the joint, when it came to pouring the lead into the joint it was singe the hairs off first (run the blow lamp flame around the joint before pouring the lead into the joint) and for a good joint the lead had to be glowing a dull red in the pot, before he would consider starting to pour the lead into the joint

When running down old lead soil pipe or any pipe come to that, you had to watch out for any water in the pipe, because it could explode and empty the pot in one bang, same with a cold ladle it had to be warmed to drive off any condensation in the metal from being left over night, a few times I have had to pick off my eyebrows, and out of my hair, spatters of lead when the pot has spat back
Old lead soil pipe stunk like the clappers, from the **** and muck on the walls of the pipe
Friday night or Saturday morning was tool cleaning time and lead casting time, any 1/2 or 3/4 inch lead pipe was straightened out and cut 3/4 through on opposite side every 9 inches, then folded up, this was the "Chinese cracker" when stood up and filled with lead, no point in carrying air, air costs too much to carry, there was also the "Frog mould" the "frog" of the brick was filled with lead
The best one I heard about but never saw, was the waist coat, the foreman plumber picked the apprentice he wanted, then measured him from the neck to belt line, and across the chest from in line with the arms
Just before going home time the selected apprentice had to go to the toilet and fit around his neck a cord "tie" with a bent nail in the end, he then went to the foreman plumber, after taking off his shirt, to be fitted with his waist coat, this was a rectangle of lead cut to the measurements taken, with a tag on each side, these were folded upwards and about half a dozen other lead sheets were then slotted over the tags, the two side tags were folded over the other lead sheets, the top tag was hung on the bent nail from the cord tie around the boys neck, the bottom tag was threaded behind the belt and up over the lead sheets at the bottom, the apprentice raised his arms above his head, whilst the foreman plumber, gave the sides of the waist coat a couple of whacks with a dresser to shape the waist coat to shape, the apprentice was told to put his shirt on again and go down to the scrap yard to be met by the foreman plumber, but for gods sake don't fall over especially backwards, because if he did, he would not be able to get up again

to be continued if there is a demand for more tales from the plumbers shop

 

[Winston]

Jesus sounds like real hard work, the nearest I get to that is Sunday every other week wipe and clean my tools bit of grease/wd40. I use to do it ever Sunday but do it when my misses is at work objects to me cleaning my gear in the living room

 

[Plouasne]

When i started out in '57, lead soil stacks were on the way out, and Cast Iron was the material in use, with lead w/c pan shorts, the idea at the time was the lead being malleable would move if there was any settlement of the building without cracking either the pan or the cast iron, the stack was run up the building with branches left off at the right heights to take the pan branch, the w/c pan was always offset to the stack, so this meant a bent lead pan connector, and more often than not, a lead anti siphon pipe, to pick up the 2" cast iron anti siphon pipe, with a 2" brass thimble wiped to 2" lead pipe, then caulked into a reverse arm anti siphon branch, either at 180° or 45° arm, these were normally spigot ends, but you could have socket ends, with these a 2" copper caulking bush was caulked into the spigot before the branch was caulked into the main anti siphon pipe, because if you didn't you would have to use Phillcaulk which was asbestos fibre mixed with cement, which was wetted and then caulked, I might add its bloody hard to caulk a socket looking down wards, because the bloody stuff wants to fall out all the time

To make the pan connector, with a 90° bend, the bend was set out full size on hard board, the size of the lead pipe was in our case 31/2", and it was classed as a one man job, non of that cissy stuff they taught you at the tec with a bobbin on a cord with a brass follower, to bump the bobbin through, this was mans work, the cord was changed for steel wire rope, a good ten feet in length, about 6" from the end of the rope a couple of tinned steel nails were pushed through the rope, and a 2" dia lead block about 3" long was cast around the steel rope, the ends of block were rasped off to round the edges, the remaining short length of the rope behind the snatch block, had a solder "mouse" cast over the end of the rope, this helped to guide the lead snatch block around the bend as it was being formed
The plumber suitably clad with a carpet knee pad took hold of the lead and with a dresser proceeded to flatten the pipe into an oval, where the bend was going to be, then he warmed up the pipe until when he spat on the lead the spit jumped off (well you would, would you not if you were spit, and was gobbed on to hot metal), then with the pointed part of the oval towards his knee, he would with a hand at each end of the pipe proceed to pull the ends of the pipe towards him, when the pipe had about 15° to 20° off straight, he would place one part of the pipe on the bench holding the other end in his hand, then with the bending stick work the lead from the throat of the bend towards the back of the bend, after that was done he would use the dummy (dummy's can or could be in different lengths a malaca cane about an inch in diameter, with a rounded hardened lead end, with the cane on the end of the bench, he would bounce the dummies head inside the pipe to start to true up the diameter of the pipe, then he would thread the snatch cable with the bobbin on the cable through the pipe, and by a combination of snatching on the rope and pushing the rope back, drive the bobbin round the bend, this was repeated over and over again until the bend was formed
How long to do this I hear you ask, Oh only twenty minutes to half an hour, I know this for a fact, my mate from the other posting, challenged me to a race once, talk about taking sweets from a blind child, he was getting on for 65, had done this all his working life, and I was but 18 still green and wet behind the ears, he did his bend in 20 mins and to while away the time, and push my face further into the ****, he proceeded to first "flap out" with a bit of sheet lead, all the dresser marks, then scrape out all remaining marks finally polishing the pipe with at first tallow and silver sand in hessian, then with tallow and hessian, until it shone like silver, when I finished ten minutes later, he matched the two bends said "not bad matey, their own mother would think that they are twins", high praise indeed from him

A bit of light relief from my ramblings, another mate of mine, was working as an apprentice with Mathew Hall, and was on a job in the "City" changing a lead soil stack to cast iron stack for a banks head quarters, they were working on the outside of the building at 3rd floor level, the plumber had previously said that the fourth floor toilets were not to be used, when they had cut out a 6 foot length to insert a length of cast iron, they heard the distinctive sound of a w/c being flushed on the fourth floor, the plumber stuck his hammer into the flow of water, and deftly caught a Richard, he then carried this little treasure down the scaffold, and went up inside the building to the fourth floor (in those days there would be clerks at mahogany desks scribbling away, and the chief clerk with a mahogany desk with a leather inlay would be facing the clerks), the plumber went up to the chief clerk, and gently placing the object wrapped around his hammer n the chief clerks desk, said what dirty barsteward has just laid this, and then walked out

 

[Plouasne]

Another tale from the Plumbers shop

Cast Iron, drain, soil pipe, rainwater pipe, and gutters, the fixing, cutting and jointing of these

Nice and easy to fix and join, at least part of you was warm in the winter months, if you stood over the lead pot, and did not catch fire, as I have done a few times, nailing the pipe to the walls, was a dead easy job as well, if you were lucky and could stand or sit on the scaffold, mark the hole positions with a pencil, move the pipe to one side or remove it, then with a No 22 (the big bugger) rawlplug jumper and a lump hammer start hammering away, once one hole was drilled, 5 inches deep you did the other one, then with a slightly tapered wooden plug that you had previously made, you drove the plug into the hole, cutting off any surplus wood with a hacksaw blade, position the pipe and with a No 8 rawlplug jumper make a start in the timber plug for the pipe nail, these were no ordinary nail as I expect you know,1/4" in dia x 3",4" (the normal length), or 6" long, these were set home by a rawlplug holder, but if driven in too hard, the ear could break, and all hell was let loose

Cutting cast iron pipe, that's a different matter, ever tried to cut cast iron drain with a hacksaw?, if it was only 1 or 2 cuts that was how you did it, cut a third of the way through the pipe, and then cut a notch all the way round the pipe, then either pick up the pipe and "bounce" the end you did not want on a timber block, with luck the pipe would snap off on the cut line, if there was a bit left on the pipe it was "nibbled off" with a pair of stillsons, the jaw was closed over the pipe close to the cut mark, and with a downward jerk on the stillsons with luck the piece would brake off, if there was a load of drain or soil pipe to do the roller cutter would be sent to site, then we would scrounge a couple of aluminium putlogs and with a length of yarn form a loop, and wrap the loop around the pipe, put the putlogs in each end of the loop and standing on one of the two putlogs push the other one away from you, the pipe to be cut was on a block of wood and the cutters had already been put around the pipe, and tightened up, so all you had to do was roll the cutters back and fore, tightening the cutters up after a time, then if all went well you would hear the pipe start to "sing" little cracking noises, before it snapped off

Rainwater pipe because it was lighter was cut with a hacksaw, the same with gutter, as described above, if the gutter was cut another hole had to be drilled in it to take the gutter bolt, this was another hand job, with a wheel brace and a 1/4" drill bit you drilled away until you got through, both the gutter and the pipe were jointed with a mixture of red and white lead putty, more often than not knocked up by hand from normal putty, with the red and white lead powder supplied loose in a paper "poke"

A bit later on in the late '60's snap cutters were invented, where either the chain was ratcheted tight or on big stuff the chain was tightened by a hydraulic ram, this was better in a way but the cut end was prone to fly, I have seen a foot of 6" drain fly right across a main road, and 3 lengths of 12" cast iron drain, plus a 90° bend and another 6 lengths in a trench, pushed back over two feet out of position, (12" C I drain weighs in at 1cwt/ft so that will show you how much force was released when the pipe was cut), this stuff I was working on was traditional hot lead caulked, and took about 28lbs of lead a joint, after yarning the joint, and fixing the running rope around the joint, we used to run along the top of the pipe to the lead pot, pick the pot up with a pair of foot prints, and use the ladle to tip the pot into the joint, all in a damp clay trench, you made sure that you did not slip because if you did you would more than likely filled your boot with nearly red hot lead, none of the elf an safty to stick their nose in where it wasn't wanted in those days

Question:: what would you have done in my place?, I was going upstairs with a ladle of lead, when a bit splashed out and a bit went through the lace hole of my boots, i could hear it sizzling into my foot. a) stop and take your boot off to get the lead off you foot, b) carry on and pour the joint, 'cos it was only a little bit of lead ??
I chose b)

Winter of '62/'63 could have been '61/'62, but it was bloody cold that winter, I saw 6 foot long icicles off overflows in the middle of London, that winter, the cast iron outside was so cold that it stuck to your hands, and some of the caulking tool snapped when being used

 

[david williams]

it was 63

 

[Plouasne]

Thanks for that, I believe it started to snow on boxing day, and the freeze did not ease up until the middle of march

 

[stevetheplumber]

Thanks for that, I believe it started to snow on boxing day, and the freeze did not ease up until the middle of march

i remember it well as i was still at school and got caned for throwing a snowball with 2 inches of ice on it and breaking my mates nose
six on each hand
reckon your about right with the dates plousanne there was an icicle from top to bottom of the church must have been forty foot high and six foot wide
we lived in a council flat with one poxy coal fire and a parafine stove my dad had a lorry and he went on delivering coal as the local coalie still had a horse which couldnt get the cart moving in the snow and this was central london
and they say its grim up north
thinking about it now i bet some plumbers made their fortunes that winter

 

[Plouasne]

Next winter I was sunbathing, in 100°f + heat, fighting for Queen and Country, in Aden, I morning at 2 am, the radio said that it was 80°f with 95% humidity, upcountry to write a letter you had to use a towel under your hand and arm to stop the sweat getting on the paper

The buildings in Mala, the main street of Aden town, 3 stories high with flat roofs had 6" rainwater pipes, it only rained about once a year but when it did, did it rain