Plumbing work is no more difficult than other mechanical work, if the tools are at hand to meet the different requirements. One job of plumbing that used to stand out as an impossibility was the soldering together of lead pipes, technically termed “wiping a joint.” This operation has been discontinued. Every possible connection required in farm plumbing is now provided for in standardized fittings. Every pipe-fitting or connection that conducts supply water or waste water nowadays screws together. Sizes are all made to certain standards and the couplings are almost perfect, so that work formerly shrouded in mystery or hidden under trade secrets is now open to every schoolboy who has learned to read.
Figure 65.—(1) Pipe Vise. Hinged to open for long pipes. (2) Machinist’s Vise. Made with a turntable to take any horizontal angle. The pipe jaws are removable.
The necessary outfit to handle all the piping and plumbing on the farm is not very expensive, probably $25.00 will include every tool and all other appliances necessary to put in all the piping needed to carry water to the watering troughs and to supply hot and cold water to the kitchen and the bathroom, together with the waste pipes, ventilators and the sewer to the septic tank. The same outfit of tools will answer for repair work for a lifetime.
Farm water pipes usually are small. There may be a two-inch suction pipe to the force pump, and the discharge may be one and a half inch. But these pipes are not likely to make trouble.
Figure 66.—Pipe Cutter. The most satisfactory pipe cutter has three knife-edge roller cutters which follow each other around the pipe. Some of these cutters have two flat face rollers and one cutter roller to prevent raising a burr on the end of the pipe. The flat face rollers iron out the burr and leave the freshly cut pipe the same size clear to the end.