# A True Pipefitter



## Aggie67 (Aug 28, 2008)

We're solid with welding, but through a twist of fate, we ended up firing or laying off a couple of pipe fitters. I have this thing about stick fitting pipe: I hate it. It's inefficient as all get out. If you want to call yourself a fitter, show me, I say. We had a crew that just ran a couple hundred feet of welded pipe, and they convinced me they knew what they were doing and to have faith in them. Turns out they stick fit the whole run. At most, they welded 90's on the ends of pipe, but over half of the joints ended up being in position, and during the post-job debrief, I find out they used the damn pipe as a straight edge to get the hanger rod lengths. Is it me? Am I expecting too much? Can't a decent fitter run a full set of hangers, take his measurements off them, and prefab everything? I ***** when they showed me the spool pieces and where they did the position welds. It's partially my fault for taking their word and just doing daily phone checks, instead of site meetings on progress. But, criminy, how do you go through life saying your a fitter when that's how you run a pipe job?

So now we're trying to bring a couple guys up to speed on fitting and properly laying out a pipe run. One of them is taking to the on-the-job training program like a horse to water, using a mix of material we've collected over the years, and a willing foreman who's got him under his wing. One is taking courses (on his own) at the local county tech school. The third kid wants to know if there are on-line courses or dvd's he can watch from home. I've researched a couple, but I don't like the way they split the dang trade curriculum into a zillion courses (Pearson Training's NCCER program). My gut is telling me the OJT is going to produce results quicker. Plus the NCCER courses are about $180 for each level. And I don't have much faith that the tech school is going to produce any results any time soon, although I credit the kid for doing it.

So my OJT program is going get dusted off and kicked into high gear. But in the mean time, has anyone had any real success with the NCCER program, or anything close? I have a copy of the Navy's pipefitter course (which is the basis of the OJT I put together), and an old copy of the Canadian version of the ancestor to the NCCER courses. (It's decent, but my big problem with turning that into the official program is no where have I seen the thing that we teach as the most important aspect: how to progress from the first day of the job all the way through commissioning of the pipe run. I was taught that face to face in the field over the course of a few years working on paper mill capital projects right out of college.)


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## mickeyco (May 13, 2006)

What are you talking about?






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## Aggie67 (Aug 28, 2008)

I'm venting. We do a lot of industrial and commercial pipe. Long runs, plus weaving pipes across a chemical plant, that sort of thing. Hook ups, too. It's not traditional plumbing, but this was the closest forum I could find here that fit the scenario.

Stick fitting to us what an amateur does in their basement or attic running copper or PVC. They build the runs stick by fitting. Run 8 feet, sweat a 90, measure, run 3 feet, sweat a 90, measure. When you're going through studs or floors and you have all weekend, you do it that way. In a chemical plant, especially with large bore welded pipe, you want to prefab as much as you can so you don't have to weld up joints "in position". So if I had a run that involved 6 or 7 changes of direction (90 degree turns), and each of those involved a change in elevation (so a turn would involve a 90 elbow up and another 90 elbow to the left or right), I want to have those breaks welded up on the ground, and preferably with the make-up pieces on the outboard sides of the 90's, cut to fit the full lengths already up on the rack. You're saving labor and consumables. Furthermore, I want the long runs welded up with economy in mind. Don't cut a 20 foot piece of pipe in half, and then essentially weld it back together up in the damn pipe rack just because you don't know how to take an accurate measurement. That's insanity.


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## ILPlumber (Aug 26, 2007)

We do the same kind of work you speak of.

1. If you want it done your way, be on-site

2. I get men from the UA local. More of them know how to run welded pipe than average joes off the street.

3. Make cliff's notes at the bottom of each venting novel. You lost me about the 3rd line of the first post.


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## Aggie67 (Aug 28, 2008)

ILPlumber said:


> We do the same kind of work you speak of.
> 
> 1. If you want it done your way, be on-site
> 
> ...


Ok. Points taken.


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