Hirtshals company Marine Shaft’s name tells you a lot of what the company does as its core business, but there’s much more going on there than the name indicates.
‘We do propellers, shafts, tail shafts rudders stocks and more, and we are the only ones who do this the way we do,’ said Marine Shaft’s Lars Weber, explaining that a bent shaft can be straightened and the company is class-approved for this kind of work.
‘I often wonder why all vessels have their own individual propeller shafts – I wonder why these aren’t standard, and also why insurance companies don’t demand that these are standardised,’ he said. ‘The lead time on a new propeller shaft is four to six months, so a damaged shaft is a real problem.’
The company specialises in cold straightening of shafts, and with its own purpose-built equipment capable of exerting pressures of up to 6000 tonnes, plus many years of experience, there isn’t much that they can’t handle.
‘Time is the important factor,’ he said. ‘Straightening a shaft is much faster than ordering a new one. Many of the jobs that come to us can be completed within 24 or 48 hours and we’ll work round the clock if that’s what’s needed to get the best delivery time. We have straightened shafts that have come to us from all around the world, and regardless of where the propeller or rudder damage occurs, having it straightened is often the most economical solution.’
Lares Weber commented that with a straightness of 0.05mm achieved on even very big shafts, often a shaft will leave the workshop straighter than it had been when it was new, and al shafts leave the Marine Shaft workshop fully approved by relevant classification society.
He commented that while welding on a propeller shaft is not allowed, they have developed methods to do this using robot controlled lasers to make this possible, with approval already in place from two classification societies.
‘We got this last autumn and started doing this kind of work in December,’ he said. ‘We had been working on our welding procedures and it took almost eighteen months to get approval. Now we can repair a damaged shaft, and weld the chrome rings while they are in place. We can repair cast-iron cylinder heads that would otherwise have been scrapped, and we are able to repair a lot of things that couldn’t otherwise have been done.’’
A growing part of Marine Shaft’s work is with cooling and RSW plants, delivering, installing and servicing RSW plants, vacuum plants, cooling and freezing systems, ice machines and Daikin heat pumps, including supplying RSW plants from Norwegian manufacturer MMC.
