Talked to an old-timer at the union hall last week about fitting tolerances

I was complaining about a job where the pipe was off by 3/16 and the engineer wanted us to redo it. This guy who's been welding since the 70s just laughed and said he once had to make a 2 inch adjustment with nothing but a torch and a 4 pound sledge. I always figured tighter was better but he made a good point about working smarter not harder when time is money. It's got me second guessing how much I stress over small gaps vs just getting the job done. Anyone else ever have an older hand change how you look at the work?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamie94022d ago

Whoa hang on, 3/16 is a pretty big gap for pipe though.

ninaowens22d ago

Depends on the pipe and what you're running through it. 3/16 is standard for heavy wall stuff like schedule 80, especially with steam or high pressure. You'd have problems with a thin wall residential gas line, yeah. But in the right setting it's perfectly fine, plenty of guys run it every day.

knight.dylan22d ago

Exactly. Like nina said, 3/16 is totally normal for heavy wall and high temp stuff.