Best Of

Well to be honest, one detail I left out is that originally I had put them up on Facebook Marketplace for free and got about a dozen VERY interested people within an hour — so I took down the ad thinking there might actually be an active market.

If the market is just for scrap, then so be it.

Is it lead jacketed or lead-sheathed wire cable / electrical cable ? If you are sure it is de-energized cut a bit off the end for a better (cleaner) inspection. Capture the chips from cutting.

can you bend it with your hands without using it as a large lever? if so it is lead. the fact that it is dull gray instead of orange and black makes me think it is lead.

No way, even 150 years ago they knew better.

I recently had to move a lineset in our shop and I bought some Staybrite 8 as well as the Stayclean flux, both paste and liquid. After doing a few tests I decided to braze everything using Staysilv 15. The reason was I didn't feel like cleaning every joint and dealing with flux. So, I brazed all of the joints because it was quicker and easier. Silphos isn't anywhere near as picky with your pipe and fittings being spotless as soft soldering.

My current opinion on it is the connection strength etc isn't an issue but I've never brazed / soldered anything near a compressor, so I can't comment on that. It's having to clean everything (just like soft soldering plumbing) without getting abrasives in your tubing, and then try to be extremely clean with flux. So, if it's something you can braze without concerns, and you've already got your nitrogen bottle out of the truck and connected I'd stick with silphos. If it's in a tight area, or something that you can't really get too hot, I'd take the time and use Staybrite.

With Staybrite you don't need to purge with nitrogen, which can make some jobs a lot easier.

I think both have their uses and you just need to decide which is the easier / better solution for each job. Like I said, I haven't put a new compressor in, and I have heard guys say you really need to braze those connections, so for now I don't have an opinion on that.

that’s 100% Efficient 😇

If you use a toekick you must have an access panel. If you have sheetrock below how would you install it without an access panel?

For the amount of heat you need its not worth the stress you don't need any heat