lucasjackson•6d agoMost Upvoted

Hit 30 years in the trade this spring. Still shocks me sometimes.

I started as a helper back in 1994 on a big refinery job in Baton Rouge. Never thought I'd stick with boilermaking this long, but here I am. Hit the 30 year mark right after a big outage turnaround last April. It's wild to think about how many tubes I've rolled and how much rigging I've done since then. The gear is so different now, especially with how fast we can get weld tests done. Has anyone else been doing this long enough to see the old steam hammers go away completely?

3 comments

3 Comments

diana_black6d ago

...and honestly, I used to roll my eyes at the old timers who said digital weld testing was ruining the trade. Thought they were just being stubborn about change. But after going through a few shutdowns with the new ultrasonic phased array stuff, I get it now. There's something about the old hammer tests that told you things a screen can't. You could feel if a tube was set right in your hands. The new gear is faster and probably more accurate on paper, but it takes the human feel out of it. I still catch myself wanting to give a tube a good tap before I trust the reading. That Baton Rouge trip really was something else, glad I got to see both sides of the trade.

robinson.hannah6d ago

Can't believe you were on that Baton Rouge job back in 94... I remember hearing stories about that turnaround from some old timers. That must have been something with those steam hammers still in regular use back then. Hard to imagine the trade now without all the digital weld testing gear.

wells.karen6d ago

96 pounds of steam hammer bounced right off my thumb that week and I still brag about it. But @diana_black is right about that feel thing, I spent half my time tapping tubes like a demented woodpecker before the digital gear showed up. These kids will never know the joy of guessing if a weld is good based on how bad your ears are ringing.