Brought in a grinder to face a tubesheet and the burr it left taught me more than my first year of fitting

Oscar Craig · 2026-09-30T02:05:05.298432+00:00

Had a small job up in Gary last month, a heat exchanger tubesheet that needed facing after the old gasket surface got chewed up. I grabbed the 4.5 inch grinder with a flap disc like I always do, but a guy on the crew handed me a carbide burr instead and said just try it. It cut way slower, so I figured it was a waste, but then I ran a straightedge across it and the surface was flatter than anything I ever got with a disc, since the disc digs in at the edges. Learned that faster metal removal does not mean a better finish when you are mating up to a gasket. Anyone else switching to burrs for facing work, or am I late to something obvious?

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Brought in a grinder to face a tubesheet and the burr it left taught me more than my first year of fitting | Boilermakers - Chatter Central