DAE remember hand rolling tube ends before we had the hydraulic expander on the truck?

Nathan Thomas · 2026-10-17T17:10:03.232838+00:00

Back in '09 I spent a whole shift rolling 2 inch tubes by hand with atorque wrench and a beveled roller, and my forearms were shot by lunch. Last month on a boiler retube in Gary we broke out the hydraulic expander and knocked out the same 40 tube sheet in about two hours flat. The feel is different though, you trust the gauge but you lose that sense of how tight the steel is actually seating. Still, my shoulders vote for the machine every time. Any of you old hands still sneak a hand roll on the tricky ones near the mud drum, or do you let the tool do all of it now?

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DAE remember hand rolling tube ends before we had the hydraulic expander on the truck? | Boilermakers - Topic Shares