Our Cold Cutting & Field Machining services bring the machine shop directly to your site – with an extra focus on safety. Cold cutting refers to cutting metal without using heat or flame. Instead of traditional hot torch cutting, we use portable mechanical tools (often clamshell cutters) that slice and bevel pipes with zero sparks and zero open flame. This is crucial when working on oil lines, gas pipes, or in any environment with flammable vapors, where hot work could be dangerous. The cold cutting tool mounts around the pipe and cuts from the outside in, giving a clean, straight cut and bevel that’s immediately ready for a new weld or fitting. Because it’s pneumatically powered and remotely controlled, the operator can stand at a safe distance, and even tight spaces (requiring just a few inches of clearance around the pipe) can be accommodated.
In addition to pipe cutting, our field machining capabilities allow us to perform a variety of machining tasks on-site. Rather than removing a valve, flange, or machine part and sending it to a machine shop, we bring portable milling, drilling, and turning equipment to you. For example, we can re-face flange surfaces that have corroded or warped, bore out a new hole or ream an existing one to precise dimensions, or drill and tap stud holes—all at your facility. The benefit to you is significantly reduced downtime: on-site machining means you avoid the time and expense of disassembling equipment and transporting it off-site for repairs. Our skilled machinists can restore equipment tolerances and precision in place, ensuring your machinery is back online faster.
Typical applications:
- Pipe Repair and Modification: Cold-cutting pipelines to remove damaged sections or to tie-in new sections, without igniting any residual contents. We then bevel the edges in the same process, making them ready for welding of replacements.
- Flange Facing: Resurfacing flange faces to achieve a proper seal. Over time or after cutting/welding, flanges can get uneven; our field machining tool restores a smooth, flat surface.
- On-Site Drilling & Tapping: Creating new holes or threading (tapping) existing holes for bolts on large equipment or structures, like drilling anchor bolt holes into a concrete pad or re-tapping a bolt hole on a heavy press, without moving the workpiece.
- Line Boring: When pivot points, bearing mounts, or pipe penetrations need machining, we use portable line boring machines to bore perfectly aligned holes or restore concentricity in assemblies that can’t be easily moved.
With cold cutting and field machining, KUTS Field Services ensures your metal components are cut or machined to spec right where they are, under safe conditions. We aim to get you back up and running quickly, all while adhering to strict safety and quality standards.