I have a typical fabrication
difficulty, and am wondering if anyone can recommend a tool or idea.
The ends of my battery pods that receive
removable endcaps have a SS inside shoulder, and were buttered in SS. The
shoulder and SS were then machined to a close tolerance to seal with a similar
SS ring on the edge of the endcap. When this machining was done, the
pod pipe was only about 18" long so that it would fit on the lathe. That
short bit has now been welded to a much longer one, and I've also welded on
external stiffeners, through-hulls, etc. None
of the welding was less than 10" from the machined end, which I thought would
prevent heat distortion. One of the pods came out fine, but with the other I
was wrong, the pipe end is now an oval.
I've tried stretching the short diameter of the
oval with a 2 ton hydralulic jack. That corrected it a bit, but I
still have about 0.015" to go. This jack can't stretch the pipe any
further, it's reached its limit. But in any case, that's such an inexact
way of fixing the problem I don't think I could get it properly round to the
final few thousandths this way. I think I need to re-machine this pipe-end in
place, and obviously it isn't going to fit back on a lathe as is.
Ideas:
- Cut the pipe again to put the pipe end on the
lathe, and re-weld.
- Make a jig that will center on the pipe ID and
have a longitudinal shaft, with an adjustable arm
mounted to it and a lathe cutting tool on the end of that.
Yuck, a lot of work.
- Is there some specialized tool out there?
Any ideas are welcome! BTW the pipe is 12.75" OD.
thanks,
Alec
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