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Saw a pipe fitter in St. Louis use a soapstone trick that saved me 3 hours on a boiler tube layout
I was on a job at the Anheuser-Busch plant last month and this old timer showed me how to mark tube layout on a curved shell using just soapstone and a flexible steel ruler. He said most guys try to do it by eye and end up cutting 6 inches too short. Has anyone else ran into that issue where your measurements don't line up on curved surfaces?
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barbara2783mo ago
My cousin and I were working on a boiler down in Tulsa last spring, and I must have remeasured that curved shell four times before I got it right. Finally grabbed a soapstone from an old pipe fitter who was retired but came by to check on us, and he showed me the same trick with a flexible ruler. I had been using a tape measure and guessing at the curve, and sure enough, my first two marks were off by about 4 inches each. That soapstone method is the real deal for curved surfaces, especially when you are dealing with tube sheets that have to be dead on.
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jaken233mo ago
Four inches off? Holy crap, that's a massive swing. You'd have to cut a whole new piece of steel for that kind of error. I've seen guys scrap plates over less than an inch on a boiler shell. Good thing that old timer showed up when he did, @barbara278. A flexible ruler and a soapstone sound way better than trying to wrestle a tape measure around a curve. I bet your cousin was glad you didn't have to reorder material and wait another week. That trick probably saved your whole job timeline.
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