[Mike Finley]

When sweating copper joints - say when you are sweating something not attached in a wall, but making something up before installing it, after you sweat a joint is it okay to dunk it in water to cool it off or do you have to let it cool slowly by itself?

I know you can run the heat up a joint by cooling something off and see the hardened soldier liquify for a second, is their any danger of weakening a joint by dunking it and cooling it off instantly?

 

[Teetorbilt]

Quenching the joint tempers the metals and gives them a crystalline structure, they become harder and more brittle. Quenching is not recommended for sweat joints. The old guys used to quickly wipe the joint with a damp rag to clean up the appearance. Key words here are quickly and damp.

 

[Pipefitter]

Never instantly dunk it, but we always have a quncher bucket handy. I always let it cool down just abit and ease it into the water if it's real hot, and like Teetor said, we always wipe it first with a damp rag to get the excess flux off. I know it's not the right thing to do, but we do thousands of joints a year like this and have never had a problem. I definatly take more of a percaution when it's two different metals like copper/ brass.