Many of you probably know what a FUM tape is. And for those who do not know, I can tell you what this abbreviation means - PTFE sealing material. It is used in order to ensure the tightness of certain connections (flanged, threaded, etc.). Although the tape is made of a very thin PTFE, an extra turn wound around the joint can lead to cracked threads from excessive pressure.
I always use FUM tape in my plumbing work. The advantage of this material is that it provides excellent tightness and, which is important, if necessary, the connection can be disassembled without any problems.
Consider the question of how to wind the tape so that there are no consequences.
Winding errors can cause what it is supposed to protect the connection from - leakage. Experienced plumbers point out common mistakes that non-professionals make. These include:
- if the winding is done in thin strips, the effect of using the tape is reduced to zero;
- before starting winding the tape on the connection, the fingers must be moistened with water, since otherwise the electrified seal will curl up into a spiral and will stick to the fingers;
- you need to work with the tape efficiently the first time. It will not work to align it after winding. If you try to do this, then the tightness of the connection will not be achieved and you will have to rewind it;
- each thread requires a FUM tape of the correct width. It is necessary to determine the required thickness by the thread pitch. The peculiarity is this - a tape of great thickness is wound on a thread with a small pitch.
It is necessary to rewind the tape enough, but not rewinding too much. Otherwise, trouble is bound to arise. In the same way, they will occur if the tape is wound less than necessary. By the way, a large number of turns does not guarantee slippage of the FUM tape.
To prevent the tape from slipping, it is wound the tape strictly along the thread.
FUM tape is wound with some effort. Here it is necessary to observe the necessary sufficiency so as not to overtighten the seal. Each next loop should overlap the previous one by 50%. The last turn is made slightly above the thread edge. This will ensure that the tape does not slip.
It is not necessary to make more than 10 turns. For example, for an inch thread, five turns of a 0.2 mm thick 19 mm tape will suffice. The first 2-3 turns are wrapped by hand, the rest with the help of a tool. In the process of twisting, one must act carefully, without, as they say, bestial zeal, this may end in a crack in the connection.
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