Shoutout to the old timer at the Anacortes tank yard who made me rethink tube rolling

Iris Dixon · 2026-10-31T00:05:04.494267+00:00

I always figured my hand rolling was good enough, and I'd been doing it that way for about 11 years. Then last month I was at the tank yard up in Anacortes and watched a guy with 30-plus years in seat a tube with a torque wrench and a set of gauges, taking his time on each pass. I asked him why he bothered, and he said a rolled joint that's 10 percent under spec will leak in about two years once it heat cycles. That number stuck with me. I went back and checked my last job and two of my joints were closer to under-rolled than I'd like to admit. Now I'm wondering how many of you torque your tube ends by the book versus going by feel, because I'm thinking I was wrong to trust my wrist all this time.

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Shoutout to the old timer at the Anacortes tank yard who made me rethink tube rolling | Boilermakers - Babble Community