In 1995 I owned a boat repair yard in Ballard, Washington that specialized in commercial fishing vessels. One day I was attempting to fit a 2-inch pipe from a curved pipe, which was welded to the mast and a steel plate on the deck. Every time that I got the joint to the curved pipe to fit, the joint to the steel plate on the deck would open up and vice versa. After a couple hours I threw down my tools and headed to the local welding store. On the drive over I’m thinking, there’s got to be some kind of tool to get this job done. I told my story to the store manager who produced a box of pipe wraps, an envelope of patterns, and a device with an arm that could draw a line around a pipe. Since none of these tools would help me in the least bit I went back to the yard and did it the old fashioned way. I wasted more time with the guess and grind method. Finally I said good enough and spent extra time making filler welds and trying to make the joints look good.
Over the next year I tried to make all sorts of tools that would make a pattern (template) that I could transfer to a piece of pipe. My wife would find bits of plastic and/or rubber boiling on the stove, baking in the oven or next to the ice cubes in the freezer. During that time we had many more “oh no’s” than we had ‘eureka’s.” What you see on our website is the final product from all of that experimentation. PipeMaster™ eliminates the waste, headaches and guess work involved in mating tube joints.
Today, PipeMaster™ builds a tool for almost every size of tubing or pipe from 1/2-inch tubing up to 12-inch diameter pipe. PipeMaster™ is used in virtually every industry around the world to save time and increase the quality of the welded joints.
Steve Helms
Owner
PipeMaster™ Tools