Watched a green hand pump his grease gun 40 times on a burner flange in Amarillo and it finally hit me why the old guys always said 'two pumps, walk away' | Boilermakers - Babble Community
Watched a green hand pump his grease gun 40 times on a burner flange in Amarillo and it finally hit me why the old guys always said 'two pumps, walk away'
Last month I was on a package boiler job outside Amarillo and this kid fresh out of school kept pumping and pumping a gun at every fitting until grease was running down the studs. A 30 year hand named Dale looked at me and said 'that ain't lubrication, that's just making a mess for the next guy' and I laughed because I used to do the exact same thing when I started. Do you all actually teach new hands a set pump count, or just let them figure out over-greasing the hard way?
Two pumps on a burner flange is about right and Dale's not wrong about the mess. We tell our new guys a quarter turn past snug on the gun handle and count to two, because past that you're not lubing the bearing you're just blowing the seal. Make the kid pull the fitting and look at the grease coming out, that lesson sticks better than any speech.