New England B.S. Thread

They are pretty fun but multihull people are generally those happy hippy moons bats. (woodshole type if anyone knows what I mean)

Sweet!


How many TWers do we have who sail.

 

I sail

 

Wow! Just went through a blaster here. moving fast to the SE.
That was like a mini-hurricane.
Shit. Time to clean up.

 

Being a sailer saying I sail aren't the same thing, just so we're all clear

 

Warm and sunny here

 

I sail. A lot. Have six sailboats. Used to race lasers and 420s. We should go sailing sometime man! My dad and I broke the mast last year on our seabird yawl... Making a new mast for it as we speak! Next time you're on the vineyard let me know!

 

Spent 3 hours trying to get a clamp-pinch style water line working for my fridge.

I want to throttle whoever wrote the instructions and specified the materials. It's on, isn't leaking but it won't shut off the pipe.

The first one I put on was part of the copper tubing kit. That one leaked no matter how I played with it. Of course in hindsight the "washer" they claimed I needed to use wasn't the one that I actually used, instead I used the one that seemed to fit well.

I ended up running to Lowe's to purchase another clamp-on unit, which at that point I figured out that my washer setup was the issue. I decided to use the new unit since I stripped a screw on the first setup.

Well, it turns out the part of the setup that actually screws into the pipe wasn't secured to the clamps well so every time I wanted to test the shutoff, it popped off.

Ended up using the original one which will throttle the water, but when I clamp it all the way down, it doesn't plug the hole in the pipe and the velocity allows some seepage.

For now it's just going to have to be full open and kill the water at the house entrance if I need to service the fridge. I hope to learn how to solder pipes in the not too distant future so I can put in a proper shutoff / tee setup which will solve this problem once and for all.

Blargh.

 

Will do as far as I know the next race im doing there is the around the island next year. I should be racing at BBR on Saturday in a DK 46 and maybe sunday on a j105.

 

What year is the Seabird? Wooden boats are something that I am not brave enough to own yet

 

My grandfather built the seabird back in the late 40s, early 50s. Think he finished it around 53? It's a plank on frame construction. All wood. It's in our yard being sanded down so we can re-varnish it! So much fun. I'll see if I can scrounge up an pictures of her!

 

...and now the valve stem is leaking...eff me.

Sorry for the whining, guys.

 

Search 'sharkbite' fittings. MUCH easier than soldering and they work really well.

 

Interesting...I will have to check into them. They look like they might be a good solution to my problem.

I'd like to do shutoff --> tee --> shutoff ---> faucet.

 

The fittings are expensive but, if you can't solder or don't want to solder, they are a great option. I have used several of their fittings on my house and all of them were easy to install and have been in place for years and not a drop has been leaked out of them. I have not put them in any of my walls, all mine were in the basement and exposed (I didn't trust them enough at the time to bury them in a wall so I soldered all those connections).

 

It's not that I don't want to solder...I just haven't before and I need to do some practice before I grab a torch and do it in a confined space. I have a co-worker who's very experienced with most everything home related (he built his own home in Newburyport) who has offered to teach me the ins and outs. It might be time to take him up on that.

I knew the clamp-on was a stopgap at best...I suppose I didn't expect it to be such poor quality.

I use Swagelok at work on a fairly regular basis so the ideas of everything is pretty easy, it's just the actual execution that's the PITA.

Joys of being a homeowner, right?

 

It's definitely worth it to know how to sweat pipes, in my opinion. If you have someone who's good at it and willing to teach you, definitely do it. The biggest problem I can see how is the solder being sold. They don't put lead in the solder any longer and the cheaper stuff sold in stores is terrible. It just doesn't suck into the joints like high quality solder will.

 

I have about 30lbs of old leaded solder sitting in my garage

 

Mike those clamp on ice mach lines always leak, either immediately or in a week or so. I went and bought some copper fittings and a shut off then ran a nice braided line, like you would see under a sink or toilet for my supply. I dont worry about leaks or about kinking it when moving the fridge

 

I ran copper lines and fittings on my frig water/ice thing . No issues so far .

 

Good Morning, folkses!
Hope you all had a nice week off from me. Last week was hell week here in the office; 3 people (out of 7) out on vacation, during our "hey, you haven't paid your bill this month" week (90 pages of past-due accounts landed on my desk) meant that I had ZERO spare time at the office last week. Bastards. What the hell is my boss thinking, that time at work is meant for work? Sheesh.

But whatever. Made it through the week with my sanity and my liver intact, mostly.

FTFY.

X2. Anytime you don't need to pay the ridiculous rates plumbers charge for their services it's a win, especially for something fairly simple.

The best way to make soldering easier on yourself is to work with CLEAN copper. Wind the emery cloth to your fittings until they shine. I've never had a problem with solder bonding to a well-cleaned surface. It's only if I'm in a hurry or feeling lazy and don't do a good job prepping the surfaces that I've run into issues with a bad seal.

Same here. When we installed our new fridge with icemaker/water in the door I didn't have faith in the little clamp-on barb the guy at Lowes was trying to push on me, so I soldered in a T-fitting and installed one of those brass shut-offs w/braided stainless line. I just didn't trust that dinky little o-ring to do the job...