Pipe cutting machine’s fast, clean bevels give fabricator more welding time

Situation

O’Cain Inc. is an industrial fabrication company located in Mulberry, Fla., that provides services including pipe and structural steel fabrication, CNC plate rolling, sandblasting, painting, and transportation of finished components. The company processes a large volume of pipe and does custom steel fabrications as well.

As business grew, the fabricator realized it needed increased capacity and the ability to process longer and larger pipe.

“I wanted a 6-axis machine for larger, more complex jobs,” said David O’Cain, president. “We needed an automated machine capable of making saddle joints, miters, and other complicated cuts.”

Resolution

O’Cain looked at several machines, then met with a Watts representative in Texas and ordered a Watts-Mueller pipe cutting machine with a 60-ft. bed.

“We now make faster cuts with less prep work and labor in upfit. This gives us more time for welding,” he said. “We saw an immediate and amazing increase in production and ROI.”

The company has a project to deliver 57,000 ft. or 20-in. pipe to a mining company. The pipe comes in random lengths that must be cut, beveled, and welded into 100-ft. sections. Flanges are welded on both ends. The incoming pipe is numbered and marked for exact lengths.

“I put the full pipe inventory into a spreadsheet and imported it into the Watts-Mueller pipe cutting software to have nested cuts configured,” he said. “The software reported a total of 1,710 cuts, showing pipe numbers with nested cuts into specified lengths.”

O’Cain explained that the pipe cutting machine cuts and bevels each joint in less than one minute, leaving a ready-to-weld bevel with no grinding required.

“Having a CNC machine that can cut and bevel so quickly, with such clean cuts, saves us 30 to 35 percent in man-hour labor compared to the older machine we used for several years,” he said.

Watts-Mueller

www.watts-mueller.com