Soldering Moron Needs Help To No Longer Be Moron

[acetate]

I had my first VM still made by a local guy who did a pretty good job. I had to do some mods on the condenser but other than that I got up and running without having to learn to solder. However, I now have the itch to make an LM and potstill and have spent the last couple weeks trying my hand at soldering. I decided to make a Parrot as a good first project. I have had no problem soldering standard pipe joints. I clean it up, heat it up, and apply solder...perfect. However, the butt soldering, attaching the 1" pipe to a piece of copper plate (the stand) has resulted in a perfect bead stuck to the 1" pipe but it doesn't stick to the plate. My first try on this I got it to stick to the plate, but I had some other problems that I had to fix which ended up breaking the whole thing. Since that first time I cannot get it to stick again. I made the piece of copper plate by splitting a chunk of pipe and flattening it out. Flattening out that piece of pipe gave me tendonitis in my elbow so I am hoping to not have to cut another piece out. Is there something special that I need to do for these butt joins? Is there an easier way to get/make copper plate for the parrot stand?

[olddog]

Always apply the heat to the part with the biggest mass first, keeping the torch away from the flux or it will burn it, when both items ar up to heat then apply the solder.


OD

[acetate]

I forgot about not heating the joint. I went back to heating the pieces and things sealed up nice and tight. I struggled for three weeks on this damn thing. Anyways, now I'm on to a simple potstill.