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Vent: My old shop's way of checking tube alignment was costing us a full day on every big job
We used to just eyeball it with a string line and a level, which always meant a ton of rework after the first fit-up. About six months ago, a guy from a plant in Gary showed me his trick with a cheap laser level and a set of scribed center marks. We tried it on a 4-pass economizer bundle, and the before-and-after was crazy. What used to take 8 hours of trial and error got cut down to about 90 minutes from start to finish. Has anyone else found a better tool for lining up tubes before welding?
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the_troy1mo ago
What about the heat distortion after you get them lined up perfect? We nailed the setup once with a transit, but then the first few tack welds pulled the whole row out of whack. Now we always leave a specific gap between marks for that shrink.
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the_taylor1mo ago
A full day seems like a lot. That Gary guy's laser trick is neat, but I've seen crews get pretty close just with the old string method if they take their time.
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