An athlete who throws more touchdowns or makes more tackles is worth more, right? What we see is the performance on the field and the contract that rewards it. What we don’t see is all the hours of effort that athlete puts in behind the scenes to make that...

The call came to EGC on Thursday, November 29 from Universal Plant Services (UPS), a project management, maintenance and repair service for the energy industry. They were doing maintenance at an oil refinery and couldn’t get a pressure seal for a Flowserve Edwards...

Industrial Valve Sales and Service of Mobile, Alabama does valve repairs for a host of power generation, refining, and pulp and paper plant facilities. During the week of Thanksgiving, they were doing routine maintenance during a plant outage at South Mississippi...

Engineering makes EGC the premier manufacturer of Thermafoil® flexible graphite pressure seals. Our VSG seals are designed for your specific application, superior to conventional metal seals and can ship in 48 hours or less. Just provide the dimensional data from your...

How do you know the VSG high-density graphite pressure seal will never leak, save tons of man-hours and can be delivered in 48 hours or less? You have to go back to the early 1990’s with a nuclear public electric power utility called Arizona Public Service (APS). One...

When Rob Garlock, our lead pressure seal design engineer, looked at the valve print he couldn’t believe his eyes.  This wasn’t anything close to a typical pressure seal, which usually measures somewhere between 4 to 24 inches. This pressure seal was 45 inches in...

Installation of a VSG high-density graphite pressure seal is SO easy because it’s compressible and conformable. So, it can work in oversize, out-of-round, steam cut and pitted bonnet cavities. And, there’s hardly ever a need for welding, grinding or re-machining....

Yes, a VSG graphite pressure seal is a retrofit for any metal seal. Yes, it’s conformable and compressible and handles thermal cycles time after time. Yes, it can be delivered to your door in no more than 48 hours. BUT, do you know how easy it is to remove from the...

The William Powell Company has been making gate, globe and check valves since 1846. They serve markets like petrochem, pulp and paper and power generation all of which are very high pressure. And, there’s something unique that’s found on high-pressure Powell valves,...

You’ve removed the valve bonnet and replaced the metal seal with a brand new, VSG pressure seal. But what about the stem packing? You’ve got to replace that too, right? Most repair guys go to their truck and get out braided packing. Then, they cut every ring by hand,...

  If you’re working on an upright valve, you’ve got many things working in your favor. The first is gravity. From a vertical orientation, you can be pretty sure that gravity will help the bonnet OD and the body ID align a whole lot easier. The bonnet can be...

There is nothing worse than a pressure seal leak or blowout in a plant when it is running. So, it is important to understand the key factors when replacing one in the field. Our Engineering team has spent three decades designing various graphite pressure seal...

You’re doing maintenance on a check valve and repairing the seat. So, you’ve removed the bonnet to get to the trim and find the pressure seal cavity is damaged.  Now your work has doubled. But when every minute is money, how do you make sure you’ve got the right...

Once upon a time, a metal pressure seal was a standard component for every high-pressure valve manufactured worldwide. But when power plants began cycling multiple times a day and going longer between outages, it changed the whole ball game. Metal can’t take...

If you’re a valve repair and maintenance customer and you bought the VSG graphite pressure seal during the spring outage, we want to thank you for your business. But maybe, you haven’t purchased yet and still have some doubts about how severe service graphite pressure...