Question about cleaning rust off of a boiler tube sheet

I had a job last Tuesday where we were doing a tube replacement on an old fire tube boiler. The tube sheet had a ton of rust scale built up around the ligament areas. I spent three hours with a needle scaler just trying to get a clean surface for the new tubes. Does anyone have a faster method for dealing with heavy rust without damaging the base metal?

2 comments

2 Comments

rileyowens2d ago

You said "spent three hours with a needle scaler" and I gotta push back a little on that being a bad thing. Needle scalers are slow but they're the safest way to clean up a tube sheet without gouging the base metal or making it thinner. A wire wheel or cup brush on a grinder might be faster but you risk taking off real metal where you need it most.

grant.luna1d ago

Have you ever tried using a needle scaler on a really old tube sheet that's got decades of gunk baked on? I had a job once where the tube sheet looked like it was dipped in concrete, and the needle scaler was the only thing that didn't mess up the metal underneath. Spent a whole Saturday with it, but every pass just took off the crud and left the steel smooth. A wire wheel would have been way faster, but I know guys who've turned a thin sheet into swiss cheese with those things. For delicate work like that, slow and steady wins every time.