Had a leaky tube sheet failure last Tuesday that changed my whole approach

I've always been a 'just hammer it back and hope for the best' guy when it comes to small tube sheet leaks. But a 2-inch crack in the weld on a 6-pitch boiler at a power plant in Gary gave me a 6-hour fight to get it sealed. After three failed attempts with a standard torch and rod, I finally tried the tri-mix gas setup the old-timer foreman kept pushing. That weld held clean on the first pass and saved me a rework call. Anyone else had a stubborn fix that made you switch up your go-to method?

2 comments

2 Comments

sean_torres7111d ago

Tri-mix gas is a total game changer once you get used to how hot it runs. Had a similar situation on a 16-inch superheater header where I kept chasing porosity with standard C25 mix on a MIG. That same foreman told me to switch to a tri-mix with some helium in it and the puddle just flowed way smoother. Cleaned the old weld out with a die grinder, ran one pass with the tri-mix and it looked like factory work. I still keep a bottle of C25 for thin wall work but for anything heavy or with old dirty steel I grab the tri-mix first now. The heat input is higher so you gotta watch your travel speed but once you dial it in it saves so much grinding time.

cora86311d ago

My buddy runs a landscaping crew and he told me something similar about adjusting his mower deck height for different properties. It's like how you switch to tri-mix for the heavy stuff and keep C25 for thin wall. He learned that cutting grass too short on a rough lot just stirs up dust and dirt, same way too much heat on thin metal blows right through. So he sets his deck higher for the bumpy old properties and drops it low for the nice flat lawns, just like you pick your gas for the job. It's that whole idea of matching your tool to the material in front of you, not just using the same setting every time. Once you figure out that rhythm, everything goes smoother and you don't have to redo stuff as often.