"Boilermaker" - Part 1
Job Description, Duties and Jobs

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Duties / Tasks	Activities	Skills	Abilities	Knowledge

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Basic Job Description:

Construct, assemble, maintain, and repair stationary steam boilers and boiler house auxiliaries. Align structures or plate sections to assemble boiler frame tanks or vats, following blueprints. Work involves use of hand and power tools, plumb bobs, levels, wedges, dogs, or turnbuckles. Assist in testing assembled vessels. Direct cleaning of boilers and boiler furnaces. Inspect and repair boiler fittings, such as safety valves, regulators, automatic-control mechanisms, water columns, and auxiliary machines.

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Job Duties and Tasks for: "Boilermaker"

Bell, bead with power hammers, or weld pressure vessel tube ends, in order to ensure leakproof joints.

Bolt or arc-weld pressure vessel structures and parts together, using wrenches and welding equipment.

Examine boilers, pressure vessels, tanks, and vats to locate defects such as leaks, weak spots, and defective sections so that they can be repaired.

Inspect assembled vessels and individual components, such as tubes, fittings, valves, controls, and auxiliary mechanisms, to locate any defects.

Install manholes, handholes, taps, tubes, valves, gauges, and feedwater connections in drums of water tube boilers, using hand tools.

Install refractory bricks and other heat-resistant materials in fireboxes of pressure vessels.

Lay out plate, sheet steel, or other heavy metal, and locate and mark bending and cutting lines, using protractors, compasses, and drawing instruments or templates.

Locate and mark reference points for columns or plates on boiler foundations, following blueprints and using straightedges, squares, transits, and measuring instruments.

Position, align, and secure structural parts and related assemblies to boiler frames, tanks, or vats of pressure vessels, following blueprints.

Repair or replace defective pressure vessel parts, such as safety valves and regulators, using torches, jacks, caulking hammers, power saws, threading dies, welding equipment, and metalworking machinery.

Shape seams, joints, and irregular edges of pressure vessel sections and structural parts in order to attain specified fit of parts, using cutting torches, hammers, files, and metalworking machines.

Straighten or reshape bent pressure vessel plates and structure parts, using hammers, jacks, and torches.

Study blueprints to determine locations, relationships, and dimensions of parts.

Assemble large vessels in an on-site fabrication shop prior to installation, in order to ensure proper fit.

Attach rigging, and signal crane or hoist operators to lift heavy frame and plate sections and other parts into place.

Clean pressure vessel equipment, using scrapers, wire brushes, and cleaning solvents.

Shape and fabricate parts, such as stacks, uptakes, and chutes, in order to adapt pressure vessels, heat exchangers, and piping to premises, using heavy-metalworking machines such as brakes, rolls, and drill presses.