Burst Pipe

Last fall, I went through the motions of draining the outdoor faucet at the back of my house, but failed to drain it properly. I recall that at the time, it didn't seem to want to drain when I took the little cap off the shut-off valve's drain nozzle -- some sort of surface tension effect, possibly. But instead of investigating and making sure it was drained, I took a stupid pill, shrugged and recapped the little drain nozzle.

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The other day, I needed the use of the faucet for the first time this year, so I closed it outside and went inside to open the shut-off valve for it. I opened the valve and I could hear water rushing through the pipe and not stopping. I'm thinking, "That doesn't sound right at all. I'd better look into this."

I went outside and was confronted with this horizontal fountain.

Not quite the desired effect. I went back in and closed the valve, and went out for a closer look. Here's what I had at an elbow right by the basement wall.

The water left in the pipe had burst the elbow¹, so now I had to replace that elbow without setting the house on fire with the torch. (When copper elbows are manufactured, the metal is no doubt stretched at the outside of the elbow's turn -- so that's an elbow's weak point. It's really no surprise that that's where the plumbing ruptured.)

When I made up this faucet installation some years ago, I soldered up all the exterior pieces at the workbench. Then I got everything fastened in place and only had to make a final solder connection inside the basement, well clear of anything flammable. To do it that way again, I'd have to drain the entire system first, and I really dislike having to do that.

So, I made up this sheet metal heat/flame shield and clamped it in place.

At the bottom, the sheet metal is folded back and up for an inch in behind. There's a soaking wet rag tucked in behind the sheet metal to act as a water reservoir.

The job was further complicated a bit by the nearness to the wall of one solder joint; I couldn't see the joint to be certain of its filling with solder, so it was a bit of a 'by guess and by gosh' procedure. I made it easier by cheating and using tin/lead solder instead of the lead-free stuff. I find tin/lead solder to be appreciably easier to work with.

Anyway, it turned out fine. The whole job actually went remarkably smoothly. Here it is all buttoned up and caulked.

The heat/flame shield did its job perfectly -- there's not so much as a bit of discolouration on the siding by the solder joints.

Come fall, I'll blow that pipe out with compressed air if I have to.

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1. How much force did the freezing water exert to do that? Quite a lot. Here's an unattributed quote I found concerning the subject: "the expansive power of a spherule of water only one inch in diameter, was sufficient to overcome a resistance of more than twenty-seven thousand pounds, or thirteen tons and a half."

I have no way of confirming that figure, and I'd love to know how that figure was arrived at, but I can believe it. Freezing water will do and can only do what it must -- expand. There's no containing or stopping it. Talk about a 'force of nature'.

Here's a video of a water-filled iron pipe elbow being quick-frozen. (Go to 01:02 minutes and you'll skip the introductory chit-chat.)

Do not mess with mother nature, and do not take stupid pills.

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Tecumseh Primer Bulb Installation Tool

[WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2011: I've added a brief note on primer bulb operation and testing. Scroll way down.]

Tecumseh's primer bulbs are long lasting, but eventually they lose their resilience or they become stiff and need to replaced. Here's an installation tool made from copper pipe fittings. I know copper is not an ideal tool-making material, but this works fine and is plenty durable enough for infrequent use. Here's how it looks.

It's a 3/4" x 1/2" coupling, plus a short length of 1/2" pipe and a 1/2" cap. It needn't be soldered together; just glue it with CA adhesive.

I embellished the end of the coupling a bit on the lathe by truing it and chamfering it, but that's not essential. A coupling as you get it from the store will work ok.

Also in the shot is an old single-port bulb and its pushnut-style retaining ring. The part number of that item is 632047A. It comes with a new retaining ring. (I don't have the part number for the two-port style of bulb, but this tool will work with it too.) The mechanic's pick shown is what I use to coax out the retainer little by little.

Once you have the old bulb out, ensure that the bulb's seat is immaculately clean. Put the new bulb in place and push in the bulb and retainer with the tool. Give the tool a tap with a light, plastic-faced mallet to ensure that the retaining ring and bulb are fully seated and you're done. Here's a shot of the finished installation.

Much better. The old black bulb had lost its resilience, and would take its own sweet time to pop back out after being pressed. This new one is nice and springy.

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WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2011

Addendum -- Primer Bulb Operation and Testing

A push on the primer bulb momentarily pressurizes the carburettor's main fuel well, causing a little spurt of gasoline to emerge from the main jet directly into the venturi. The carburettor has no choke, so that's what provides an enriched mixture for starting a cold engine. Excessive priming will flood the carburettor with too much gasoline -- you'll have to yank on the starter cord several times to clear the condition and get the engine to start. (If the engine has a speed control lever, set it to 'high' to help speed up the process.)

To confirm that a primer bulb is working, remove the air filter and peer inside the venturi with the aid of a flashlight. When you push on the bulb, you should see a little spurt of gasoline emerge from the jet.

It's a very reliable little system. An undamaged bulb that's firmly installed on its seat should work fine. A carburettor that won't prime with a good bulb on it has some other problem, and I wish I had a quick and easy solution to offer for that sort of situation, but I don't.

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Salvage

With the price of virgin material what it is, one is well advised to cultivate an eye for the beauty that resides concealed within even the roughest looking of cast off material.

Here's a shot of my workshop ceiling's salvage rack. There's a whole lot of beautiful material resident there, believe it or not.

Please bear with me while I deliver the back story to this.

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We've recently replaced wall-to-wall carpeting in our home's master bedroom with hardwood flooring. Even the closet's floor got the hardwood flooring. The closet's walls are lined with tongue-and-groove solid cedar -- a very nice touch that the previous owner of the house put in.

Once the floor had been installed, the closet needed a minimal baseboard installation; just a run of moulding to conceal what gaps there were where the floor meets the walls.

I looked around at the Home Depot for something suitable and found nothing, really. What I saw there that even came close left me reeling with sticker shock -- over ten dollars for an eight-foot length of solid pine cove molding that wouldn't have looked right. So much for that bit of shopping.

That nearest plank in the preceding photograph is solid cedar, just like the closet's lining. (It used to be baseboard in our living room until it got replaced.) It dawned on me that my table saw and router could do a credible job of turning some of that into simple moulding that would serve just fine.

I ripped a seven-foot length of cedar plank into one-inch widths, sanded it and ran it past a 1/4" radius round-over bit on the router table and voila, enough moulding to do the job at a material cost of roughly zero dollars and zero cents, with the sales tax forgiven. Here's a length of moulding with the router bit I used.

A seven-foot length of nominal 1x6 cedar plank yielded four lengths like this-- more than enough. Here's a close-up shot of the finished outcome.

It's not flawless, but it's pretty damn good for the price.

So there we are. Much good stuff is hiding inside what may look to some like trash.

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Attaching Things to Concrete or Masonry Block Walls

I'll get to the subject of the title of this piece eventually. Please bear with me while I grumble a bit.

If I had my life to live over again, I'd devote myself to disinventing the telephone; I hate the things with a passion. But, they are a fact of life and I do have to have one -- even in my workshop.

Some recent rearrangement of things in the workshop has rendered the phone's old perch inoperative, so I have to make a shelf for it. I figure the material in the following photograph is wretched enough to be fit for the cursed instrument.

Once I've built the shelf, I'll have to attach it to a masonry block wall with 3/16" Tapcons^[1]. Tapcons are excellent fasteners; I really like the results I get from the things. But any method of fastening things to concrete or masonry is fraught with peril because of the difficulty of getting holes situated with any degree of precision. You can start the hole where you please, but the drill is going to seek the path of least resistance, and concrete and masonry can present large variations in density and hardness as you proceed with a drill.

I've never seen anyone address this difficulty with any helpful information. For whatever it's worth, I'll share what I've learned about it here. If anyone knows of a surefire method for getting holes drilled in concrete exactly where they're wanted, I'd like to hear about it.

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Here's the little patch of bare wall that I had in mind for the shelf to go on. I've spotted the upper two of three Tapcon locations as carefully as I could and centre-punched them. Something I've found helpful is to pencil little circles around the punch marks. They serve as a 'target' that can help you correct any drill wander that wants to happen just as you're starting a hole.

Another thing I do is to build a bit of adjustability into the item to be mounted. That's simply a matter of drilling oversize holes for the Tapcons. If all goes well, you'll be able to adjust the item's position to compensate for slight misplacement of the Tapcons' holes.

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And as it turned out, all went well. Here's the shelf installed and dead level.

The two upper holes through the back of the shelf were 1/4" diameter for 3/16" screws. That gave me enough slop that I could level the shelf successfully, even though my Tapcon hole placements weren't exactly perfect. In the event that a Tapcon hole ends up badly misplaced, and you have to greatly enlarge a mounting hole to get an item levelled, you can use fender washers to make the installation sound.

The single Tapcon at the lower end of the shelf's back was easy to install. The hole through the shelf there was 5/32" -- the size of a Tapcon drill for 3/16" screws. That gave me a guide hole for drilling the third Tapcon hole, after I'd levelled the shelf and securely tightened the two upper screws.

Anyway, it's done. Here it is with the phone in place and on hold.

If you were wondering what the red hook in the opening photograph was for, now you know.

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Addendum -- MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2011

Well, my face is about as red as that 'hold' hook. Shortly after I'd installed the shelf, my son came by, examined the 'hold' hook, and proceeded to show me how you put one of these old phones on 'hold'. It's really simple and easy -- no hook is needed.

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Update -- THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 2012

A reader kindly clued me in to the truly correct way to put an old phone on hold. It looks like this.

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Note:

[1]Here's the Tapcon website. I have no financial interest in promoting their products, I'm just trying to be informative here.

The Tapcon screws work as advertised. They're widely available. Use their drills in a hammer drill and follow their instructions, and you'll be pleased with the results.

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Pumice Stone Brush Repair

The loose pumice stone in the following photograph is not atypical; I've had to deal with this sort of thing before. Some makers of mass-produced goods are uninterested in making anything that actually works right; they're only interested in making facsimiles of stuff that might cause money to change hands in their direction. So, it comes as no surprise that my wife's newly-purchased pumice stone brush came apart.

Clear silicone sealant is ideal as an adhesive here. The sealant 'flows' into the stone's pores, and really gets a grip on it. The key to a permanent repair is to fully coat both mating surfaces with sealant before assembling the pieces. Here they are coated and ready for assembly.

And here it is back together, with what little squeeze-out there was wiped away.

And here it is set up with a gravity clamp while the sealant cures.

The hard-copy, bound book is not dead yet, not by a long shot.

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Twist Drill Shank Modifications

I'm on record as having praised K&S Engineering's telescoping brass tubing product to the sky for its usefulness and versatility, so I feel obliged to exhibit new uses that I find for it. There's one example of a use here, where I used it to sleeve an oversize bore in a barbeque's valve knobs that I was repairing. Following is an example of the converse, where the tubing serves to increase a diameter rather than decrease it. Here's a photograph that explains a lot.

Pictured is my elderly Craftsman 3/8" drill, with a modified 1/16" drill in its chuck. There was a little problem with chucking a 1/16" drill in this drill's chuck -- the chuck is worn and will no longer close down to 1/16". (I needed to drill a lot of small pilot holes for 1 1/2" finishing nails to do a problematic baseboard installation job -- long story.)

Brass tubing to the rescue.

A short length of 3/32" outside diameter tubing (just over 1/16" inside diameter) glued onto the shank of a 1/16" twist drill with CA adhesive gave me a means of chucking the drill securely in the worn chuck. The arrangement worked nicely and got the job done.

A variation on this sort of drill modification can be helpful when what you need is not so much a longer than normal drill, but a drill with a longer than normal reach. You do the same as what I did to make the 1/16" drill fit the worn chuck, but you use a longer length of tubing. Here's an example of a 'lengthened' 3/32" drill.

The tubing's outside diameter here was 1/8"; hence, its inside diameter is a slip fit over a 3/32" drill shank.

The tubing and the glue bond are entirely strong enough for the drilling of small diameter holes in wood. But if a more robust extended-reach drill is needed, one can be made by using steel rod instead of tubing. here's an example of an extended 1/8" drill.

That's 6mm diameter rod salvaged from an old laser printer. These are easy to make if you have a lathe. Just use the drill that you mean to extend to bore a hole in the end of a length of rod, degrease the parts with lacquer thinner and assemble with CA adhesive. The adhesive bond will likely take anything you can dish out.

Should you ever want to take one of these apart, just heat the glue joint gently with a propane torch. CA adhesive is not all that heat resistant. It will soften and let go.

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An Unorthodox Tee-Nut Application

A typical tee-nut is a threaded barrel with a big spiky flange at one end of it. Tee-nuts are great for installing steel female threads in wood for fastening things together; but there are other ways they can be put to use. Here's an example.

I needed a nut plate recently to span a 1 1/8" diameter hole in the back of a piece of furniture, so I could secure an ill-fitting lamp cord grommet. On the face of it, such a thing can be easily made -- just drill and tap a hole in a suitable length of 1/8" thick mild steel flat and there's your nut plate. But tapping even mild steel with a small diameter tap like 6-32 is fraught with peril, and I avoid doing it if there's a reasonably elegant alternative. Here's a way to make a nut plate using a tee-nut. The resulting part is actually superior to one with a tapped thread.

Pictured below are the ingredients.

At the left is an unmodified 6-32 tee-nut. Beside it to the right is an identical nut that's had its spikes broken off, and the resulting rough spots filed. At the very right is a two-inch length of 1/2" wide, 1/8" thick steel flat that's been prepared to accept the modified tee-nut. Note the countersink to partially accept the radius at the base of the tee-nut's barrel.

There are two ways you can go about this. That hole in the steel flat can be drilled for a slip fit, or for an interference fit for the tee-nut's barrel.

In this case, the tee-nut I'm using has a barrel diameter of 3/16". So, for a slip fit in the steel rectangle you'd use a 3/16" (0.1875") drill. A No. 13 (0.185") drill gives an interference fit. Either case requires press-fitting in the vise to mash the radius at the base of the nut's barrel into the countersink. Here's a shot of the parts in the vise being pressed together using a 5mm socket wrench as a pressing 'anvil'.

An interference-fitted version will be ready for use right out of the vise. A slip-fitted version needs to be glued together with CA adhesive.

Here are finished examples of both versions.

The upper one is a glued, slip-fitted nut plate. The lower one is the press-fitted version. Either one will work fine.

Here's a shot of the glued, slip-fitted item on the job.

A very strong nut plate, and no tap got broken or dulled to make it. ('Sorry about the glary photo. I still have much to learn about photography.)

This technique is an inexpensive alternative to Rivet Nuts in any situation where the back of the material is accessible.

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