Brace bits ?

[Bill Houghton]

I inherited one of those reamers Chilly shows for CPVC pipe from my uncle.  Works a treat on PVC, too, and faster than the utility knife I used before.

[Chillylulu]

I inherited one of those reamers Chilly shows for CPVC pipe from my uncle.  Works a treat on PVC, too, and faster than the utility knife I used before.

I think that most cpvc tools are the same as pvc or abs.  We can't use the blade type cutters though. Could cause micro-fractures.

Billman, I think your research pretty much nailed the plumbing tools.  We were talking about wall thicknesses earlier.  Undrground pipe has really thick walls, and alot of it is lined with concrete or something.  Even the smaller stuff like 4" and 6" pipe.  Everytime we came closer to yhe answer the work got harder!

Chilly

[pritch]

The longer I think about it I keep coming back to the same thing. For whatever reason, if you only wanted the oakum (or caulk) to be a set depth in the joint, then the little spur on the side would be the depth-stop as it hits the outside of the bell. If it is indeed a caulking tool. the one I have has a really mushroomed head, though, so it's been routinely hit hard with a hammer.

[Lewill2]

They just had a piece on This Old House TV show that showed caulking and pouring a lead joint on a sewer pipe and I though they drove the lead in after pouring it in place and after it cooled to tighten the joint.

[Chillylulu]

You have to set it.

I have lead wool. The last time I used it was to caulk 8" pipe threaded into a flange.
The pipe was hot dip galvanized after fabrication, burning any dope out.

I've stopped cast iron leaks with lead wool and more often casting defects have been stopped by hammering a #2 lead pencil into the leak.

Chilly

[scottg]

   OK my favorite picture to re-post. I tried to buy this off ebay years ago.
I didn't get it, but I saved the picture.

  You can find blowtorches. Ladles are no problem either.
  Oakum/lead drivers are not too hard to get, by the pound.
All these things were available at almost every swap meet ever held.

  Every town had a plumber and big towns had many. Cities had dozens and dozens.
You find the tools of the standard plumbers kit everywhere you look. 

  All except this part.  The wrap around lead mold.

  You pound in your greased oakum to make a foundation, and to even up the pipes
(cast iron drain pipes, prevalent from coast to coast.)
    Next, wrap around a mold.
Then pour in your molten lead from your ladle   (that you just melted over your blowtorch).

  Wait a moment for the lead to set up.
   Then proceed to drive the lead ring you just cast, into place. 

   Lead does not stick to cast iron. Hardly anything sticks to iron.
  So you cast the ring, which won't seal by itself.   But its lead, its soft.

  You drive the ring in deeper and harder until it bottoms out in the oakum bed, and expands there. Neatly locking the pipes into place, and sealing tight.
For many many years service.
   All those bent plumbers "chisels" you see, are for this job.

  Just about every home and business, and everything else, had this underneath it. My house still has some lead/oakum sealed cast iron drain pipe.

   Where are all the molds?
  There once had to be almost as many molds as the other tools we still see so often. Unless there were other kinds of molds I don't know about, and have overlooked them.
            yours Scott

[Chillylulu]

We still pack underground lead-ins coming into basements with oakum.  Same old irons work like they did forever.

A lot of those asbestos containing tools were trashed.  I think thats where a lot of the old lead dams went.  A lot were kind of disposable anyway.  Further back they used clay to make lead dams.  It wasn't just for drain pipe, it was for water lines too.

Chilly