Safety Blinds from Flow and Control Engineering
Non-pressure rated safety device designed to isolate piping systems and to protect personnel from potential hazards. Steinmans Safety Blinds are not intended to be used in pressurized systems and are marked with “Not For Pressure”.
- Fabricated to 1/8″ thickness only.
- Used for blocking potential flow in non-pressurized systems.
- Protects against leaking valves or product left in lines.
- Protection of the process system from contamination by outside sources.
- Saves time and costs.
- Available in many types of materials.
1. One Piece Construction
Our blinds are a true one piece construction. There is no need for welding or grinding since each blind is cut from one solid sheet of metal, which includes the handle. This design eliminates concentrated heat affected zones caused from welding. It also eliminates the need for grinding which can lead to uneven surfaces and leakage.
2. Precision Cut
Our blanking spade blinds are cut to precision. We follow very strict dimensional and thickness tolerance requirements, while others do not. Many companies try to save money by importing their blind disks from foreign manufacturers in China and Mexico, where quality standards are quite often not as high. All of our spade blinds are cut from domestic metals and 100% made in the USA. We take pride in our blinds and stand behind our quality.
3. NEW! Custom Handle
Our engineers have completely re-designed the standard spade blind handle to be safer and easier to use. Today’s spade blinds or line blinds are typically fabricated with either a solid flat “skinny” handle or with a thin metal rod handle – which are sometimes difficult to work with and identify when in use. Our handles are designed to accept your standard 3/4″ shackle to be used for rigging out of tight spaces. They also make it easier for transporting and hanging for storage when not in use.
4. Added “Tagging Hole”
Many of our customers have requested that an extra “tagging hole” be added to the handle of our spade blinds. We now offer this option as a standard. This hole is used to attach a lock-out or identification tag to each line blind in use or in storage. The tagging hole sizes range from 1/4in. diameter to 1/2in. diameter (for the larger spade blinds). We have integrated the tagging holes into our standard spade blind design and will be included as part of our fabrication process unless noted otherwise by customer request.
5. Cost / Weight Advantage
Our blanking spade blinds are more efficient and cost effective than the competition and here’s why:
- Spade blind thickness are kept to a minimum resulting in lower material cost and total weight. Our standard blind thickness is 1/8in. thick.
- No special machining / milling is required for the gasket surface, thus eliminating the cost completely. The standard finish for our spade blinds is a mill finish of typical SA516-70, SA-36, SA240-304, etc.
- Our spade blinds can be manufactured in just about any type of material. Therefore, they can be applied in virtually any type of process piping system in applications where there exists potential flow downstream. Our spade blinds are used to eliminate the potential environmental and physical hazards that occur from insufficient line blocking during a shutdown or scheduled maintenance.
- Our spade blinds are lightweight and portable. They can easily be stored while not in use or transported from job site to job site.
6. Safety Flange Check Guide
A common mistake occurs when a wrong sized line blind is used to block a line. Typically, a smaller sized blind will accidentally be used with a larger flange. This could result in a “bad” seal with the gasket which will result in leakage. We corrected this problem by adding an additional cutout to match the diameter and location of the flange bolt hole. This alignment hole will ensure that the correct spade blind is used everytime.
7. Lock-Out Feature
Quite often line blinds or paddle blinds are left in the line for days, weeks, sometimes months, or even permanently. Our handle allows the customer to lock-out these blinds by simply placing a chain through the handle and around the pipe or valve. Then finally securing the chain ends with a lock or group lockout device. This provides an extra level of safety to the job and will ensure compliance with proper lock-out procedures.
8. Easy Identification
Each and every one of our spade blinds are easily identified and marked with the following information:
- Flow and Control 1-800-840-1730 toll free number, for technical and commercial support.
- Material specification and grade.
- Flange class.
- Pipe size (NPS).
- Abbreviated Flange Class and Pipe Size (inverted).
One of the most noticeable marking changes on our paddle blinds is the addition of the abbreviated flange class and pipe size text (inverted marking). This marking is being introduced for added ease of identification. At Steinmans, we wanted to give our customers an added benefit for using our blinds vs. the competition. Therefore, we designed this text to be much larger and bold so blinds in use can be identified at a distance. The text was also inverted to make it easier to identify during storage and non use.
