Developing a ‘feel’ for tube fittings can lead to big problems

Stop relying on "feel", join us at our July 16th Tube Fitting Safety Seminar  

The Swagelok® tube fitting takes the guesswork out of installation and adds reliability

When you’ve done a job over and over, you start to develop a feel for it. You just know the right time to shift gears, or the right amount of backspin to put on a ball. It’s a mistake to take the same approach to valves and fittings, however.

Swagelok tube fittings take the guesswork out of installation. There’s a right way to pull up the fitting, and it’s the only right way regardless of how it feels: Fully insert the tube into the fitting and against the shoulder, rotate the nut finger-tight, mark the nut at the 6 o'clock position so you know your starting point, and while holding the fitting body steady, tighten the nut one and a quarter turns to the 9 o'clock postion (3/4 turn for 1/16" - 3/16").

Even though the instructions are easy to follow, not everyone gets the message or remembers it. Earlier this year we had a training class for about a dozen people from the same company. We asked them a simple question: What are the proper installation instructions for a Swagelok fitting?

“I think we got five different answers,” says Jason Burns, one of our trainers. Some of them may have been thinking of the pull-up instruction to another company’s fittings. Maybe they were taught the wrong technique years ago by someone who didn’t really know what he was doing. Or maybe years of doing the job have made some people overconfident in their ability to know when they’ve done the job right.

Learning by doing

Working by feel also is a problem because our fittings come in a variety of materials, depending on the intended use. We drive this point home during our training classes by having the attendees assemble fittings made from different materials.

“We have them do the easy one first and the harder one second,” says Mike Valentine, asenior account manager who is also our training manager. “If they can go by the feel of the easy one, they would be significantly under-tightening the harder one.”

Working by feel means you can never know for sure that you have a good seal. That can lead to some real safety issues, according to Valentine. Some of our fittings are used in lines supplying toxic gasses to machinery. A bad seal exposes people to dangerous fumes. Some of our fittings are used in lines that run caustic chemicals. A leak can damage other equipment and cost thousands of dollars for repair. Even if you are running something as basic as air or water through your system, poorly installed fittings can mean lost production time and lost profitability.

There’s no need to work by feel. Swagelok Northern California can train your new hires to do the job right from the start, and remind the experienced staff. We can even present a train-the-trainer program so that you can maintain your own culture of high-quality work.

You’ll end up with the right kind of feeling: Confidence that the installation will be as good as the Swagelok tube fittings themselves.  

Tube Fitting Safety Seminar

We are offering a tube fitting safety seminar on Wednesday, July 16th from 12pm - 2pm at our Fremont facility.  Lunch is included. Your can learn more about it and register here »

Additional Resources

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