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4 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News Circle 228 on Reader Service Card Time equals money, and every minute of downtime has a negative impact on margins and profits. That's especially true for service organizations involved in solving uniquely challenging prob- lems within the maritime industry. Whether a ship is offloading crude in Bellingham, Wash., or restocking sup- plies for a cruise to the Bahamas, the driving objective of every person involved is getting out to sea and back to business. How best to complete unusual repairs efficiently, reliably and cost-effectively is demonstrated by two companies pre- sented with two tough engine mainte- nance challenges. Both Power Tech Inc. of Sequim, Wash., and L.A. Maritime Services Inc. in Long Beach, Calif., found a similar solution in a tool from Portland, Oregon-based Climax Portable Machine Tools, Inc. — its Flange Facer 6000. Power Tech, which services various industries, has in the past successfully completed several onsite-machining jobs for Polar Tankers, a division of Conoco Phillips. Struggling with a liner problem on its 16,000 hp, 7-cylinder engines, the company turned to Power Tech for help. According to James Luna, CEO of Power Tech, the problem was caused by a build-up of carbon on the top of the pistons which polish the liners, causing a loss in ring feed. Successfully remov- ing the carbon would improve engine performance and decrease emissions. "The engine manufacturer's suggested process — removing the liners and repairing them at a machine shop — would have taken Polar Tankers' ships out of service for too long a period of time," said Luna. Power Tech decided to do the job on site using the Climax Portable Flange Facer 6000 (FF6000). Luna first com- pleted a test cut on a used liner, refined the tooling and the machining process, and designed special indicator tools to make the set up time quicker. Luna also designed a custom sealing device to con- tain the chips from cutting, to make the operation much cleaner. Portable Machining Helps Improve Service MR JANUARY2006 #1 (1-8).qxd 1/3/2006 7:58 PM Page 6
