Strip buildup fight at the refinery in Gary took me 6 hours, shoulda been 2

Ran into a slag buildup on an old boiler tube that just wouldnt break loose with the normal needle gun. Ended up having to rig a different chipping setup from scrap on site, and it was stubborn as hell. What shoulda been a quick job turned into a full afternoon because I kept trusting the same method instead of stepping back. Anyone else got a go-to trick for hard slag that makes you feel dumb for not using it sooner?

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

the_nina1mo ago

I had the same thing happen on a heat exchanger at the BP Whiting site, that hard black slag that laughs at a needle gun. What finally worked was soaking it with a 50/50 mix of diesel and ATF for about an hour first, then hitting it with a wide flat chisel on a air hammer instead of the needle gun. The oil gets into the cracks and the flat chisel pops it off in chunks instead of just polishing it. I wasted 4 hours that day before a old timer walked by and told me to try it. Now I keep a spray bottle of that mix in my truck and it has saved me more times than I can count. Soaking first is the whole trick, dry slag just absorbs the hits and stays put.

1