We had an excellent beginning to a collaborative work plan for flue tube installation on the SP&S 700!
Members of our crew met up with some of the crew members of the SP 4449 at 9:30am to create plans for the day. We started with taking delivery of the large flue tubes from CH Murphy and moving them inside, and we then gathered in the break room where the SP 4449 group had developed a work staging plan for us. Their having the most recent experience doing this, and their having photos of their layout from when they went through this 5 years ago, was a big help for us!
Next step was setting up the work area: staging the tubes, setting up the furnace work area for annealing the tube ends, tube cutting area, set up scaffolding, developing a measuring plan and tools for the tube measuring, and many more countless things to make it all happen.
Some guys were tasked with parts runs as we set up and it was found that we needed additional parts.
Among all this Randy Woehl (our Vice President) and Pat Tracy (of the SP 4449 group) took part in a video interview that will be put distributed on social media for the groups involved. Additionally a 3 min video of our work will be made for promotional purposes. The film crew will be there a couple more days as we work on this project.
After our work area was all set up we began annealing the small 2.25″ tubes. The purpose of this step is to soften the metal for rolling the tube upon installation for a pressed fit into the tube sheet. The crew today was able to complete one end of all forty-eight 2.25” tubes. The other ends will be annealed after they are cut to size for fitting into the boiler.
After that, we then took one large (3.75″) and reset the furnace so we can continue this task on Monday.
There were many obstacles and much planning in today’s progress.
It was a positive collaborative work effort of which the PRPA is very thankful to the Friends of the SP 4449 for helping make this happen.
Without their knowledge, experience, and guidance we would not be able to accomplish this, certainly not in a timely manner.
Many thanks to the Friends of SP 4449!!!!