# brazing wires



## 422 plumber (Jul 31, 2008)

I had an interesting job today. Our fitters had some work to do at an asphalt plant. They were supposed to demo out some 6" product lines. They have heat tracing on the lines, because the product needs to be at 350 degrees to flow. Usually, the heat tracing is steam. an apprentice cut what he thought was a steam line, it was electric tracing. There are two wires, more like resistors, in a s.s. tube. The tube is filled with a kind of powder, to keep the resistors apart. We had a repair kit, and brazed the two resistors together, slid a s.s. coupling, which we had to drill out .0004,s bigger than the o.d. of the tube, braze the tube to the coupling, then inject the coupling with a syringe full of the powder. Insert a brass screw into the injection port, cut the screw flush, then braze a dab over that. We kept breaking the resistors or would get the coupling cherry red, and then the resistors would pop apart. We finally got it done. Very gratifying. i have never done it before, and probably won't do it again, but at least I know how, now.


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