Caught a younger boilermaker saying tube rolling was 'old school' and it got me thinking

I was at a supply house last Tuesday picking up some 2-inch ferrules and heard this kid maybe 25 tell his buddy that hand rolling was a waste of time because the new hydraulic expanders do it better. I've been in the trade 18 years and I get where he's coming from but I've also seen those machines leave a hairline crack on the inside radius that you don't catch until pressure test. My old mentor used to say 'feel the tube grow' when you roll it and I still check that way on critical jobs. Has anyone else noticed younger guys skipping the hand techniques or is it just my crew?

3 comments

3 Comments

violatorres2mo ago

The real problem isn't the tool itself, it's that nobody talks about the tube sheet fit-up anymore. I saw a job last month where a kid used a hydraulic expander on some 1-inch stainless and the tube pulled right through because the sheet wasn't reamed proper. Hand rolling lets you feel that initial drag and catch a loose fit before you even start expanding. Those machines just hammer away and hide bad prep until something goes wrong later.

fisher.adam2mo ago

Funny how that applies to pretty much everything now, people skip the basics and blame the tools.

-1

casey161mo ago

Yeah, you ever push on a door that says pull so hard you almost fall through? That's me trying to explain hand rolling to my nephew... he looked at me like I was explaining how to churn butter. I tried to show him the old drag-and-feel trick on a 1/2 inch copper tube and he pulled his phone out to time me. Thing is, I've had those hydraulic expanders slip a seal on a 3/4 inch schedule 80 and it left this tiny ripple in the tube wall that I only caught because I ran my thumbnail across it after. Felt like a fool telling the foreman I trusted the machine instead of just rolling it by hand for two minutes. Guess I'm the old guy now, yelling at clouds with a torque wrench in my hand.