Manufacturing Solutions Blog

Tex-Fin Inc. of Houston, TX had a problem. They sold a large job to a South American company that required finned pipe 180 degree return bends to be beveled at a consistent and reliable angle. This was also a large quantity job and the usual hand beveler would not keep up. Besides the typical hand beveler is slow, low quality, somewhat hazardous for the operator, and is not reliable in terms of delivering a consistent bevel. Manufacturing Solutions Inc. of Beaumont, TX had the solution. Tex-Fin purchased a C5H ChamferMate® to automatically add the bevel to the 180 degree return bends. Tommy Hall, Owner and President of Tex-Fin, says, "MSI was a great asset to us as we needed a tool to handle this large job. Their expertise and engineering know-how made it easy to deliver the quality and consistency our South American customer required, as well as meet our through put requirements." "We have only had the C5H ChamferMate® for three months and we are still exploring ways to use this flexible tool" states Mr. Hall. Tex-Fin is building a long rack to handle tubes up to 20 feet long that will significantly reduce the time to bevel the ends of these long tubes and pipes. "We have a number of large quantity long tube jobs with diameters ranging from 1.25 inch to 4 inch diameter that we can produce more efficiently using the C5H ChamferMate® than was possible before - and more profitably for us too!" Perhaps the most exciting new use for the C5H is that Tex-Fin now has the ability to J-Bevel pipe. Tex-fin is currently bidding on a very large job to produce tube stock for condensers. The customer requires a J Bevel on the tubing return bends so they can use their automated welding system. "The C5H allows us to bid competitively on this type of job. The flexible tooling we can use with the C5H is enabling us to add more variation to out tubing and compete for more orders." says Mr. Hall. Tex-Fin is in the business of manufacturing finned pipe/tube and provides related services for the heat transfer industry.  Read More

What is a bevel?  Read More

Don Stunkel is the Training Coordinator at the Plumbers & Pipe Fitters Union, Local 501 in Aurora, IL and he has discovered an interesting way to save time and money as he trains apprentices in the art and science of pipe welding. Don and his team went to the AWS trade show in 2010 and met Wayne Moncla of MSI. MSI showed Don and his team the latest technology for automatically beveling a pipe end.  Read More

What is pipe beveling? Pipe beveling is the process where an angle is formed between the edge of the end of a pipe or tube and a plane perpendicular to the surface. A standard pipe bevel angle for welding is 37.5 degrees. Other angles and special forms such as J-Bevels can also be produced on the ends of pipe or tube using automatic pipe beveling machines.  Read More

Boiler Tube Company of America (BTA), located in Lyman, SC, supplies replacement boiler pressure parts and other related auxiliary components for all styles of boilers, regardless of the OEM, to the electric utility, pulp and paper, waste-to-energy, petrochemical, marine, sugar and grain industries. A few years ago BTA went to Fab-Tech in Chicago looking for a solution to replace their ancient tube and pipe beveling equipment. At the show they found Manufacturing Solutions, Inc. (MSI) showing the Chamfermate® line of tube and pipe beveling machines.  Read More