As an HVAC technician, how do you typically swage and flare copper pipe? Are you familiar with the Spin resources? COPPER SWAGING TOOL
Anybody who has worked on HVAC systems for any length of time wishes they had a tool with a bigger contact area. Don’t have enough links? Make use of the swage tool. The use of a swaging tool on HVAC projects might reduce the number of required connections and welds.
What Kind of Swage and Spinnable Flare Tools Do You Need?
The tool looks like a little metal paddle and can be used in any conventional drill thanks to its universal hex base. When dealing with copper tubing, it is recommended that you utilize soft-drawn copper rather than stiff copper when using the copper flaring tool. This kind of swaging and flaring equipment has been around for a long, and the guys who use it have strong feelings about its usefulness. Their portability and use for quick copper swage or flare joints bolster their value.
Pros of Using a Spin Tool
The time savings offered by this kind of device are the main selling point. Manufacturers of such equipment claim their products can swage and flare metal up to ten times quicker than with a conventional block. The fact that they can be easily transported increases their appeal. If you take them out of their hard case, a complete set of flares and swage can fit in a canvas or nylon tool pouch, taking up very little room in your luggage or van. When compared to other available options, the spin tools are inexpensive.
Hilmor’s hydraulic swaging tool may cost anywhere from $300 to $700, depending on the package you choose, while Navac’s battery-powered copper flaring tool costs close to $700. The price of the spin tools is equivalent to the price of the more conventional eccentric flaring blocks and swage kits, although the latter requires much more time to set up.
Issues with Spin Tools
The task calls for a powerful drill. Each company advertises that their product is compatible with “any drill*” in their product literature. If you look at that asterisk more closely, you’ll see that any drill that satisfies the specifications may be used. When it comes to cordless drills, a minimum of 18 volts and 1800 rotations per minute are required, whereas corded drills need 500 watts and 1800 rpm.
The ease of use may be seen as a plus or a minus, depending on the context. Although these tools are simple to use, producing high-quality copper flares and swages may be difficult. Even while the copper swage tool is more lenient in this regard, it still requires precise alignment. The copper pipe swage will be crooked if you get the job started at an angle or off-center. Flares are not something I have any faith in, therefore I solely utilize the swage. It’s possible that you’ll have more success than I did.
Sizes
In general, the smaller sizes are more dependable than the larger ones. You can see that the biggest 7/8″ swage was challenging for four out of the five tools I tried by watching the video up there. The 12v impact’s ability to power the swage and leave the competition in the dust blew me away.
To make room for the next length of copper tubing, swaging tools are employed to enlarge the end of the tube. This is performed before a brazed or soldered joint is permanently bonded. Swaging is a process that is performed on both soft copper tubing used in plumbing and ACR (Air Conditioning, Refrigeration) copper tubing used for the refrigerant. The number of welds along the length of the tube may be cut down with a little swaging. If you want to use a coupling, you’ll need to braze two joints together; if you want to use a swage, you’ll only need one. In this piece, we take a look at both swaging and deburring equipment.
These are the five most common swaging tools in the trade:
- Swaging By Hand
- Block-spin hydraulic swaging tool with standard swage and flare Hammer, Swing
- Here are the three most common deburring instruments in the field:
- Deburring Tool Round Deburring Wheel Uni-Bit Deburring Pen
- Deburring and slicing tubes
Before swaging copper tubing, it must be deburred, which may be done using a deburring pen, unit, or round deburring wheel. Tubing cutters are what you need to get the job done. The tube end is quite sharp and indented inward after being cut. When deburring a tube, removing the shards you create while cutting the tube is important. Hold the deburring tube at a downward angle so the shards fall out of the tube and away from the line set.
Equipment for Deburring: Their Various Forms
Top-Rated Burr Remover
In addition to “deburring stick” and “stick reamer,” the term “deburring pen” is also often used. This is for trimming the interior of a tube to a smooth finish. The deburring pen is maneuvered in a circular motion to achieve this effect.
Minimal Unit of Logic
- One quick deburring method of tubing is using a unit in a drill.
- Before and while spinning the unit with the drill, be sure to keep your fingers away from the ends of the tube and the unit.
- Keep your hand smack in the center of the tube to keep from cutting yourself.
- When you need to deburr a lot of tubing, a unit is your best bet.
- Wheels, Rounded Set of 3 For Deburring
Swage, Manual
Use the appropriate size die with the hand-swaging tool.
Incorporate the tube into the die.
Halfway bring the two handles together, then twist the copper tubing slightly before bringing the handles together completely. In order to account for the tiny gaps between the die’s individual pieces, you must do this. By doing so, we can prevent the copper tube from splitting where it has been stretched.
Below is a picture showing the joins between the different parts of the die when the two handles are joined.
Avoid opening the tube end too much by forcing the swage at the conclusion of the process. Brazing or silver soldering will produce a gap between the tubes that must be closed. The swage of the first tube should fit tightly over the swage of the second tube.
Hydraulic Swage
With a quarter turn, the die is fastened to the machine. When using certain models, the die must be screwed on.
This device works in a similar fashion to the traditional hand-swaging tool, except that the die is expanded by pumping or squeezing the handle.
Halfway through the swaging operation, pause and spin the copper tube like you would if you were doing it by hand. This is done so that the tube won’t break when it’s stretched too far.
Squeezing should be stopped when it gets difficult. Avoid opening the tube end too much by forcing the swage at the conclusion of the process.