Raptor Sleeve Puller

2022-07-24

  So last week, a friend in Santa Rosa calls me up and says "I've got a leak". I go running up, and under a vanity there's a leaking valve. And it turns out the problem is that the compression ring on the copper in the wall is damaged. I go to his local hardware store, they don't have a ring puller, and it's the same time to Friedman's Home Improvement and Home Depot (Lowe's was a little further). Given the option, I go to the indie every time, so I drive to Friedman's Home Improvement to pick up a sleeve puller, and... it's crap. It's plain that this has never been used to pull anything more than a faucet handle. After a couple of attempts, the nut pulls out, and it's broken.

Having lost 45 minutes on a weekday night, I get back into the car, hit Home Depot, get a sleeve puller, and it's awesome. Well engineered. Works amazingly. The sleeve comes off. We replace the valves and sleeves, and everything's groovy.

This was up in Santa Rosa, but Friedman's Home Improvement is the closest big box store to me in Petaluma. Unfortunately, this is part of a trend of them having the cheapest tools, the cheapest parts, the parts that *are* going to let me down.

I look to the places I buy from for some guidance. Part of why I buy from local vendors is that I try to develop relationships with people, so that when I go in asking for advice and direction they know "this guy" and we can skip the preliminaries.

But it doesn't matter how good the local staff are, if whoever's in purchasing is buying and stocking crap.

Anyway: Avoid the "Raptor" sleeve puller. And it's seriously making me reconsider whether, when I get in the car, I drive across town to Friedman's Home Improvement, or get on the 101 up to Lowe's or Home Depot, because I really only want to do that trip once.

Anyway, we hit Lowe's in Cotati today for some of today's projects. For various reasons, but it's gonna take some time to get the taste of this experience gone.

  And here's the right tool, the Husky sleeve puller from Home Depot. Note a couple of things: First, the brass sleeve to screw into the valve nut, so you don't have to use the wings (which can't grip behind the sleeve tight enough anyway). But also, that the wings for the handle pulling function are on a piece with the nut threads cast into it.