Engineers Opinion Needed on Weird DPM Requests

[steamer]

After doing some watchkeeping revision this morning (looking at my new pond through the window for four hours), I was reminded of a weird job that we were asked to do re: our davits. At the time I was a bit concerned that in doing this, we would be posing future problems for engineers, wasting our time somewhat and wasting resources....but I might be wrong!

Basically we were asked to paint all of the hydraulic hoses with black gloss, which seemed counter productive insofar as serial numbers and hose specifications were being obliterated and most of it would crack off and make a mess of the deck when the davit moved.
Also all of the joints and couplings were covered in grease tape, which in my opinion makes leak and fault finding very difficult, surely stainless fittings which could be heavy greased or ACF-50'd would be a better option.

Anyway, it just make me wonder at the time, and gave me a giggle this morning remembering it....any thoughts?

[alistairuk]

You painted the hoses?? I would of thought this would of resulted in pissed off engineers when they noticed....

And yer, generally its better to slap grease on it if its not liable to rust / needs to move since at least you can just wipe the grease off if you need to!

[steamer]

That's my view, especially as I have practical background....but I'm just a cadet lol

[Clanky]

Painting hydraulic hoses? If I had been the chief then the mate would have been having a long conversation in my office!

If the fittings were showing any signs of rust then denso tape is not a bad idea, it's easy enough to remove and while it leaves an awful sticky mess it does prevent corrosion, if they were not showing signs of corrosion then they were probably a good enough grade of stainless that they don't need to be covered.

[penfold]

Zinc-plated hose-ends are a pain; wrapping them in Denso is the least worst option, but you have to pull it off every couple of months to inspect. Painting of either hose-ends or hoses is a no-no. Stainless hose ends should be left uncovered, anything more than a smear of grease or the likes of ACF50 is only going to promote crevice corrosion.

[Chiefy]

Nothing unusual at all about the request. It's (or was) part of the MAersk Offshore ISM, all exposed hydraulic hoses painted with a UV resistant coating (black Hempathane at the time) AND all exposed couplings coated in Denso Tape from NEW BUILD or after repair works, as most hoses fail at the ends we used to take the Denso up an inch or 2 on to the hose it self and if you are so inclided can paint over it after about 6 months.

It saved our bacon a good few times when hoses did fail as we could easily remove the couplings and the "fixed part" was still useable. As for ID numbers on hoses, most I see are just pressure marked by the makes etc, and you order by length x pressure rating x fittings required, the trickiest part was always deciding which fitting it was....some Japanese fittings are nearly but NOT quite the same as EU fittings so you had to pay attention to where the gear was made etc

So now you have 2 chiefs and 2 opinions...cos opinions are like noses......everyones got one

[steamer]

Cheers for that guys...but surely all hoses should conform to some European Standard re:UV resistance, also I would have thought that tampering with them could invalidate warranties etc?
I agree with the Denso use, the conditions that we operate in are pretty harsh!

Cheers!

[GuinnessMan]

Cheers for that guys...but surely all hoses should conform to some European Standard re:UV resistance, also I would have thought that tampering with them could invalidate warranties etc?
I agree with the Denso use, the conditions that we operate in are pretty harsh!

Cheers!

What warranty?

[Chiefy]

what he said^^^^^^^^^

[ETwhat?]

As a random point we had the valve block fail on a davit the denso tape kept enough salty water around it until the casting corrorded and failed.