RE: [TCML] Joining two 25 foot rolls of copper tubing

[Joe Mastroianni <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just did this, twice.  I needed to splice in 2.5 turns on my primary.  I had a bunch of tubing left, but it was kind of gnarled and abused and eventually I had to cut out (with a tube cutter) a section that was hoplessly kinked.  So I wound up with 2 pieces.  It was the leftover from my threading procedure when I threaded 13 turns of tubing through polycarbonate stanchions over 2 days.  Luckily I had drilled 16 holes in each stanchion, but I didn't think I could thread 16 turns (and I probably couldnt in one long string) so I only did 13.

Threading the outside 2 turns was much easier than I would have thought.  I threaded each section and joined it to the already installed piece with a "connector" I made thus.  I cut off a 1" piece of tubing with the tube cutter, and then I cut a slit in one side with a hack saw.  Using a needle nose pliers, I folded this cut tube in upon itself so it became kind of a spiral, like a pastry.  Eventually, it fit into the ends of the two tubes snugly.   I didn't even bother soldering.

Now - I had heard about using brass screws, but unfortunately I didn't have any screws of the appropriate diameter.  That might have been a better answer.  Though, I am sure using copper on copper probably made less of an electrical discontinuity, or so I'd like to believe.

In any case, I was able to splice in 2 pieces in about 10 minutes.  There is no corona discharge, and the ends meet pretty cleanly.

Cheers,
Joe


>I have two 25 foot rolls of 1/4 copper tubing. I could not see how it might
>be possible to join the two rolls to make a spiral primary. So I ordered a
>50 foot roll. But I'm curious if anyone has joined two such rolls? 
>
>Godfrey Loudner

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