Grapes or Sugaring?

Makes no difference what you call them, these tube and pipe weld root defects can be a thing of the past – right now.

‘Two countries separated only by a common language.’ That’s one of the classical descriptions of the difference between terminology used in Great Britain and the United States.

http://youtu.be/RCDDGEd5W0I

When welding in Britain it’s ‘grapes’ and in America it’s referred to as ‘sugaring’, two entirely different terms used to describe the exact same root defects that arise through poor welding practice.

No matter which term you use, these root defects in tube and pipe welds can now be a thing of the past thanks to innovative ancillary equipment from Huntingdon Fusion COB Industries (HFT COB; Melbourne, FL) that follows on from its parent company’s progressive developments in inert gas purging and a new generation of easy-to-use ancillaries.

PurgElite® is a group of inflatable devices. This exciting extension to the HFT COB product range contains the world’s smallest inflatable pipe purging system. It can be used in pipes and tubes with a diameter of only 25 mm (1 in) and up to 300 mm (12 in).

The unique Quick Purge® system covers the diameter range from 150 mm (6 in) up to 1800 mm (72 in).

Just to make sure the oxygen content of the purge gas is low enough to eliminate grapes (and sugaring!) a new family of weld purge gas monitors has been introduced by HFT COB.

PurgEye® 100 represents a world first in instrumentation designed for site use whilst still retaining accuracy down to 0.1% (1000 ppm), whilst the PurgEye® 300, ultra lowcost PurgEye® 300 Nano, pumped PurgEye® 500 and PurgEye® 600 with touch screen and wireless recording of data for quality control, all read down to 10 ppm.

No need to waste expensive inert gas by using the outdated technique of flooding the whole pipe system with inert gas and exchanging it eight times to achieve a reasonable oxygen level and guessing at the actual oxygen content.

Neither is there a need to waste very valuable skilled operative’s time in constructing home made devices.

PurgElite® and PurgEye® are only a phone call away and will probably recoup the cost in the first one or two welds just through savings in gas and time.

Huntingdon Fusion COB Industries, PO Box 361175, Melbourne, FL 32936-1175, www.huntingdonfusion.us.