shut off valve, compression fitting

[feather]

Hello shop people I'm so glad you are here!

We turned on our backyard hose faucet and our shut off valve (30 years old) needed to be opened for spring and it started to spray everywhere. We turned them off.

We bought a small hacksaw and a compression fitting shut off valve. We watched a bunch of youtubes to get that far.

The cuts offs of the copper pipe were not altogether straight, and maybe not close enough (length of the opening). We did use plumbers tape on the compression fittings on each side, and it leaks. Of course, since we don't know how to do this stuff.

We did this last week, we have a glass under it, the leaking is less and less while the shut off is open, the faucet is open. The water line is open. What is the conventional wisdom on this? Do we just leave it drip every couple minutes (not a great amount of leaking) until it somehow seals itself or do we remove it and then put it in again this next week-end? Other ideas? What say you? Thanks for being here!

[sawmilljim]

A small tube cutter is cheep and cuts straight . I never heard of using any compound \tape on a compression fitting .

[Bear Foot Farm]

I'd redo it, and leave off the tape, since it's only used on threaded fittings to reduce friction

Clean the pipe on either side with sand paper

Use a couple of pairs of channel lock pliers to get the fittings as tight as possible, and there should be no more leaks

[moldy]

needs to be straight cut. lots of pros us tape on compression fittings, will not hurt and it helps seal older pipes better, just don't use to much. you do want to stop the leak or your water bill will skyrocket.

[Deleted]

Little late to the party, all you more then likely needed was a new stem or just a washer in you valve.

You only need teflon or plumbers putty when connecting two different types of metal (galvanized to brass)

Your problem more then likely stems from using the hacksaw, you really needed to use a pipe cutter.

when making connections with solder or glue,not so critical,just clean off the burrs.

That pipe needs to seat in that compression fitting though.

You have a bad cut and you need a true cut, get a pipe cutter,pop it on, snug it,twist,snug,twist,repeat.

You may be able to clean that end up a bit and fix it, but I say just redo it.

I would solder a coupling on myself... really not to hard.

Interested in that process I can give you a walk though.

[feather]

Well, it stopped leaking but we'll have to do something about it at some point. The line is wide open, yet no leaking.

The pipe is in a pretty small space. We found a small pipe cutter on Amazon. What if we cut it too short (the pipe), what kind of a fitting would we need?

The pipe is 1/2 inch (from memory), straight line, straight compression cut off valve. I'm hoping we can do this on a non-emergency basis. If it breaks--we have to shut off all the water from the well to the house.

Thanks everyone for the information.

[Bear Foot Farm]

I'd solder in an inline cut off valve

If the pipe is too short, splice in a new section with a straight union, soldered in also