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cutting brass
Friday, December 13 2002
Nothing is ever simple in this homebuilding thing I've been doing. I couldn't leave the second hydronic zone running last night because a gate valve in the basement was missing a nut from around its stem and it was leaking slightly, directly above an electrically-controlled valve. Today I set out to find a replacement for that missing nut, so I went to Lowes and bought a similar valve having what looked to be similar (18 mm) nut. But when I got home and tried it out, I found that this nut, which was hollow and contained a rubber washer, was just a little too shallow for the task.
Then of course there is the matter of the bathtub, which is anything but normal, and so too apparently are all its various attachment. In order to get a standard tub drain to fit onto it, I've had to add a seven inch long extension tube in one dimension while replacing a 4.5 inch tube with a six inch one in the other. Not that anyone actually makes seven inch extension tubes; I had to buy a 12 inch tube and then cut it to size. There are few materials as difficult to cut as brass. Its hard but also springy, two things you definitely don't want in a material you're trying to drag a blade across.
In an attempt to simplify the construction of the modified bathtub drain, I soldered two of its pieces together, thereby eliminating one slip-joint connection because I do not trust such nonsense. This soldering job was much more difficult than soldering together copper pipe to fittings. I had to try several times before I finally made a joint that didn't leak.
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