Paul Lynch is a Pipe Fitter currently working on the Mater Hospital project for the Maintenance Department of Jones Engineering. Paul has been with the company for a couple of years but previously worked in the US. During his time in the US he picked up some interesting gadgets designed to make a lot of the day-to-day tasks a pipe fitter has to carry out much easier and more accurate. In this issue of LEAN Times Paul has shared his innovations with us.
In Fig. 1 Paul demonstrates an innovative pipe alignment clamp. A tedious part of pipe fitting is tacking fittings onto pipe, especially large sizes. Heavy bends can be very awkward to line up and hold in place This clamps holds the fitting aligned to the pipe face and frees up a pair of hands. A fitter could even tack a heavy bend on his own.
Looking similar to one of Batman’s Batarangs, the next piece of ingenuity is an invaluable addition to the fabrication shop. Normally when squaring pipe onto a bend, the fitter would line up an engineering square and take two measurements along the tacked pipe to ensure it is square before the final tacks are welded. This purpose made tool makes this task much simpler. A square piece of sheet metal with the corner cut away enables the fitter to square the pipe much more easily, as can be seen in Fig. 2. It can be used on many pipe sizes and larger versions can be made to suit bigger pipes.
In Fig 3 & 4 above, Paul shows us two more instruments to enhance the skill of pipe fitting. When squaring a flange onto a pipe, the short side of an engineering square is placed against the flange face and two measurements are taken along the pipe before the flange is tacked. The tool in Fig. 3 is a magnetic flange alignment tool. The engineering square is clamped into the tool which is magnetically held to the pipe. The flange is automatically aligned with the short side of the square. Again this tool whilst freeing up a pair of hands can be used both horizontally and vertically to tack both sides of a flange.
The next gadgets we see are Flange Pins. These are demonstrated in Fig. 4. The tapered pins tighten up centrally in the bolt holes in order to line up the flange “two-hole-top.” When tightened into place a small level can be sat on the pins to make sure the flange holes are aligned.
The Contour Marker in Fig. 5 is a fairly simple tool, designed to mark the centre of a pipe. This is used when cutting a hole to weld on a branch or saddle to a pipe. Marking the hole for a branch on a pipe can be a bit hit and miss at times. Using the Saddle Maker tool shown in Fig. 6 the chore becomes much easier. Used in conjunction with the Contour Marker this tool comes in all pipe sizes for perfect saddles. Paul has an array of helpful tools in his arsenal all designed to make our daily tasks easier and more accurate.
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