making manifolds

chris smith

hi all,

i see some of you are making your own manifolds[copper] and i would like to know what you use for tool, i see yellow jacket and rothenburger have what they call tee pullers and mag tool has what they call a flow drill, i would like to purchase one of thease rigs for an up coming job and would like your impression of thease tools and what you use.

chris smith
porter maine
ps. see a bunch of you in november

kevin_5

Manifold fixin's

Hi Chris, I'm new to this tool, but I've got quite a bit of experience with it already.

As far as I can tell from my web surfing, Yellow jacket gets their tools from Rothenberger. It's made in Germany, and very quality, very simple. They don't send any type of owner's manual but all you do is drill hole with included bit, install threaded hook tool in hole, and when you back out the hook, it enlarges the hole and pulls a lip up around the edge. I use an electric drill for both operations. It's a whole lot faster than the ratchet they send along in the kit for the second operation.

It costs around $600 and took 6 weeks for it to come from Germany on a boat. Why they couldn't airmail it is beyond me, but if Rothenberger USA doesn't have them in stock youy'll probobly be waiting a while.

If you're using brass fittings, silver soldering is very very tricky. I had about two hundred fittings to install ina couple jobs, and I opted to solft solder them in. I figured vibration isn't a factor with pex attached to them.

If you've got a lot of manifolds to build, it will pay for itself pretty fast in comparison to the nice cast brass wirsbo manifolds, but I've decided I really like the looks of the cast ones better. Building a couple dozen 8 loop manifolds before the job is quite an undertaking as well.

I think I got my time down to about an hour to make two 8 loop manifolds, but then you have to pressure check them and all that too. I think I'm kinda burned out on it.

Check the archives, and you'll find some helpful stuff that Hot Rod and the others wrote when I had questions.

Hope this helps. Kevin

Gary Fereday

T-drill & overhead!

Kevin, That is a nice post! And the implication of the overhead buried in the soldering, testing, fabrication is what is overlooked in so much of our business. If you build a mamifold, ok but are you ignoring other matters that could (WOULD) make even more money if you were not tied up with the manufacture of the manifold? Kinda like "I saved $20.00, going to ABC shoe store, even though there is a shoe store right next door!" ABC shoes are 20 miles away in traffic, tires, gas, time, risk, (overhead overheard?) anyway bigugh

John Felciano

T Drill

We use a T drill for making our manifolds.

For the most part we use premanufactured manifolds for the basic stuff.It really doesn't pay to make them for the simple stuff.The savings comes when were making up manifolds for near boiler piping with larger trunk lines 1 1/4" and up.They look allot neater than a whole bunch of tee's and we can custom design just what we need.

The T drill tool is very expensive so unless your going to do allot of them or can find a tool cheap(I bought mine on e-bay)it might not be cost effective.They do alow you to make some pretty cool stuff.

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John Felciano

T Drill

We use a T drill for making our manifolds.

For the most part we use premanufactured manifolds for the basic stuff.It really doesn't pay to make them for the simple stuff.The savings comes when were making up manifolds for near boiler piping with larger trunk lines 1 1/4" and up.They look allot neater than a whole bunch of tee's and we can custom design just what we need.

The T drill tool is very expensive so unless your going to do allot of them or can find a tool cheap(I bought mine on e-bay)it might not be cost effective.They do alow you to make some pretty cool stuff.

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Paul Rohrs_2

Rothenburger T-Puller

Great post Kevin. It wont be long until you are writing books about your experiences. I am looking forward to the first signed copy.
Your supplier and friend,
Paul

chris smith_2

who makes copper manifolds

who makes copper manifolds spaced for pumps and valves,[diff manifolds[ so the parts will fit up right and tight, i'm moving towards high end custom work [haven't won a bid in 6 mons[, don't miss it yet, find i make more on the high end stuff and also enjoy the challenges of custom work

chris simth

porter maine

chris smith_2

great pics

gives me ton of ideas, most of what i'm trying to do is custom one of a kind stuff with simply stockable parts don't want to do outa of the box stuff unless its from my shop, lol
chris smith porter maine

Jim N.

Great layout. Any particular reason for turning the two pumps on the right 90 degrees? (or the three pumps on the left??)

Mark Eatherton1

Hey Felcie...

The wife wants to know if your better half is going to the gathering? And I want to know what the minimum centers you can get out of 2" copperwith 3/4" branches would be. How's that for opposing questions?

ME

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hr

T drill trickery, OC spacing

I've pulled down to about 1-5/8" O.C. The pipe size really doesn't effect the spacing, this is 1-1/4" with 3/4" branches.

Probably the best power tool I own that ole T-Drill.

hot rod

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John Felciano

I guess!

Yes she's going to the gathering.She heard about shopping and well...that was all she needed to hear.I think she e-mailed your wife back,but I'm not sure.

HR answered your other question.I did some right angle T drilling for a little experiment that DVW was doing a while back with "closely spaced tee's" I don't know how he ever made out with it.(DVW are you around?)

Jim,The cics are turned only because thats the way they come from Taco.The two on the right are high head circs.

If anyone is looking for a T drill check e-bay regularly they come up every so often,and can be picked up fairly reasonably sometimes.Just be carefull because the manufacturer is not very helpfull with problems for tools purchased second hand.

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Mad Dog

I've used the T-Drill extensively........AND

it is truly a smart invention and tool, and has its place. However, the little, wimpy, shoulder that it pulls out - that you must silver-solder - is not very durable. Especially once you braze it, it can be damaged easily - very soft. I've seen them bend and twist with hardly any torsion at all. Now, add the weight and stress of circulators, valves, flow checks et cetera to it. I think you'll spend more time and money on silver-solder and kindorf straps than if you soft-soldering the manifolds with standard tees. Speed isn't everything. Very nice work - regardless - very impressive!!!!!!!!! Nice clean look, which is due, in part to the T-Drill Mad Dog

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Duncan

Sioux Chief

Sioux Chief makes some pretty nice K copper manifolds in a lot of different configurations. The One and a quarter inch header by 3/4" branches are spaced real nice for Honeywell or Erie zone valve arrays.

I dunno if you can get 'em spaced farther apart for circulators or not.

They make for a real clean installation. The only drawback I've found is that the copper is real soft. A little tweaking and everything lines up real sweet.