Not soldering

[Paul Cockhill]

Hi

Cannot understand why the solder is going into balls and dropping off the pipe. Must be making basic errors but cannot understand what. As the soldering yesterday was fine.

Any ideas

Thanks

 

[Rickster123]

Pipes cleaned with wire wool? Properly fluxed up? Water in the pipework?

 

[Riley]

I'd say most likely water in pipe

 

[ShaunCorbs]

I would say pipe not clean as it's melting and dripping of and not sucking into joint

 

[jtsplumbing]

What sort of pipe are you trying to solder ??

 

[Stigster]

Overheating can cause this. As other's have said water in the pipe can also cause the opposite issue of not reaching soldering temperature and the solder will bead or run off.

 

[JCplumb]

Had a spell of this happening when my flame was too hot, took a while to find the sweet spot with my new torch. The fittings were blacking up before reaching solder temperature.

 

[Howsie]

Pipe not cleaned or fluxed properly. Overheating burns all the flux off.

 

[Paul Cockhill]

copper pipe

 

[Paul Cockhill]

no water in the pipe

 

[Paul Cockhill]

Thanks everyone for your replies. It is copper pipe and it was cleaned and no water in the pipe, so i guess I have not fluxed enough

 

[Scott_D]

any pics?

 

[Howsie]

Thanks everyone for your replies. It is copper pipe and it was cleaned and no water in the pipe, so i guess I have not fluxed enough

What gas are you using? What size pipe?

 

[Best]

Try not to heat the joint too much and keep adding flux on the end of the solder wire.
When the solder wire just begins to start melting, (touching copper, but not under the flame), you are normally only 2 or 3 seconds from the correct temperature for soldering.
If the clean pipe and fitting inside and outside hasn't been "tinned" (coated in solder) then it will not solder properly when the flame tarnishes it. That is why you need to keep the surfaces fluxed. Note that capillary action also works well with flux, so don't be afraid to add flux as you solder.