If you did the joints with the water passing in the morning, you went hungry at piece (dinner) time.
😀 Bernie will know what i mean.
To do a branch joint you need one of these for marking out
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Don't know if this will work!? It didn't! but it was a picture of a pipe marking guage. If i remember tomorrow i'll post a picture up.
It is called a guage. They came in various sizes to suit the pipe size. It was sat across the centre of the branch hole and a compass or caliper used to scribe a line on the sides of the pipe and the hole used gave the height to be cleaned on the branch pipe to give a uniform joint.
You also need a bending bolt which is basically a steel or iron offset, to open up the joint.
When i was an apprentice my journeyman used to say "look at his cloth and you will know how good he is"
Smudge is used to prevent the solder sticking where you don't want it. It is basically lampblack (fine soot) mixed with chalk and some beer to make a kind of black paint. Mark and clean the lead and paint a band of smudge around.
This is a dying part of the trade as there is no real need to do it anymore. Like everything else nowadays plumbing requires very little actual skills, only a bit knowledge
I can still do passable joints which to the uneducated would look great but i know they are not because i worked with guys who could do works of art. Even worked with one old guy who wiped off his joints with his silk tie (yes he wore a tie to work).
Btw use grade D solder. It has a lower melting point
😉
