Welding Tips and Tricks

This is a 2" SS Goddard "wedge" cryogenic valve with a Kel-F (teflon-related) seal on the wedge.

The valve is sitting against a mirror.

I'll guess........

The mounting holes are drilled too close to the ring?

Nope...

The clue is in the mirror.

I'll take a stab...........the flow arrow is wrong ???

A cigar for you!

It was a casting error. The center plug of the mold was backward at casting. The upstream side of the valve is at the downstream side of the arrow.

Goddard has no explanation.

I'm thinking the mold was assembled by someone with a bad hangover on Monday morning.

The "fat" machined seat is the upstream side, machined to meet the plastic seal on the wedge.

I cut this valve out today, ground out the flow arrow, stamped in a new one, and installed it correctly.

The sad part?

It's been wrong since 1986, and no one noticed. It gets inspected every five years.

That reminds me of a girl friend, who walked around all day long with her T-shirt on inside out. Nobody noticed until we sat down in a restaurant for dinner and one of the guests made a remark that her logo was very faint in color. Everyone's attention was now on the T-shirt and she soon realized that she had it on inside out.

So, being the smart blonde that she was, she slipped her arms back into the T-shirt and spun it around. She thought that she had solved the problem, until someone made the remark, that her T-shirt was now on backwards and inside out. She thought about it for a minute, turned bright red and excused herself to correct the problem in the public washroom. It still makes me smile to this day, when I think about her solution to a simple problem.

Do people not pay attention?

It's been wrong for 27 years, and this valve gets a rebuild every 5 years.

WTF???

Otto Nobedder wrote:Do people not pay attention?

One could drive a car in any city and come to the conclusion that. . . no, they don't. Even when theirs and other peoples lives are on the line. Good catch on your part though.

Sounds kinda like what I hear in construction alot "it's not MY problem" ie... leave it for the next guy only usually the next guy isn't there...