Pipe alignment trick with a cheap laser level I wish I knew sooner

On a job in Toledo last month I kept fighting a 12 inch steam line that wouldn't line up no matter how much I pried on it. I got a $30 laser level from the tool truck out of desperation and shot a line across both flanges. Turns out the spool piece was bowed by nearly half an inch and I was chasing my tail with a straight edge the whole time. Has anyone else used a laser for fit-up or do you stick with the old string line method?

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the_seth2d ago

A laser will catch the bow every time, I had the same thing happen on a 30 inch line that looked straight to the eye. I still keep a string line in the box, but the laser gets set up first now because it don't lie about small warps. Once you see that spot on the floor, it makes the whole fit-up way easier to explain to the guy holding the come-along. Lining up flanges with a string is good for a quick check, but that cheap laser showed me a 1/4 inch sag in a pipe I had sworn was dead nuts. It's worth the thirty bucks just to stop fighting with the torch and the grinder for an hour. I ain't going back to guessing.