TAMING TWO WELD BEADS

摘要

MANY tube and pipe mill operators, or maybe all of them, would agree that handling scarf is one of the most demanding tasks they have. The weld bead is red-hot, and when the scarfing tool peels it off the weld seam, whether it's from the ID or OD, it becomes razor-sharp. Mill speeds have increased over the decades, and so has the speed at which the scarf comes off the tube. Equipment manufacturers offer two ways to deal with the strands of OD scarf: winding and chopping. Winding it up on a powered take-up reel is the conventional way to handle it; chopping it into short lengths is the newer of the two methods. While both have advantages, neither eliminates the risks associated with handling a hot, sharp strand of steel that relentlessly feeds off the mill.