plumbingshutofftoilet
I bought a new multi-turn valve to replace a really old one.
The new one has a compression fitting where the old one is soldered. My plan is to use a pipe cutter just below the soldered joint. I'm not soldering or using sharkbite hardware. Here's a pic:
Do I need to prepare the surface of the pipe where the new compression fitting will be sitting to avoid a leak?
When I was installing radiators we used brass olives that had a one sided chamfer instead of a chamfer on both sides as per normal olives.
Also using nylon olives with a boiler is usually a bad idea as they might not be able to take the heat.
That's most likely a copper pipe covered in solder. You can try scraping the solder off to see if you get down to some copper to verify. A copper pipe cutter is cheap and easy to use:
Get this onto the pipe a close to the valve as you can, tighten the screw until it's snug, and spin it around the pipe making sure to keep spinning on the same location (you're making a cut, not treading the pipe or making a spiral). After every few turns, tighten the screw a little more and eventually the pipe will break off. Clean the pipe with some emery paper, and install a new compression style valve (this only requires a few wrenches (crescent or fixed, not a pipe wrench or pliers if you want to avoid teeth marks). If you removed too much of the pipe, you may need to replace the escutcheon with a flatter style.
Best Answer
Generally speaking, the ring compression should work just fine. They don't look it, but they were standard long before the push-fittings came along and made this stupid easy. As long as there's nothing under the ring, it should seal properly.
I would get a wheel-type cutter to do this, however. Not only will it not burr the pipe, but it won't bend it either.