Tubes, such as pipes, water pipes and the like, often develop ruptures, holes, cracks, fissures, fractures or other openings that undesirably affect the performance of the tube. For example, tubes such as the fire tubes in an industrial hot water heater are vertically oriented in the water chamber of the heater and act as a conduit for hot gases emanating from a combustion chamber below the fire tubes. Water is heated when heat from the hot gases rising in the fire tubes is transferred to the water which surrounds the fire tubes. Often, one of the fire tubes develops a hole that causes water to leak out of the water chamber into the fire tube. It is a problem to repair a fire tube because they are normally encased within a tank or chamber and the entire tube cannot be easily reached. A present method of repairing a fire tube in an industrial hot water heater is to partially, or fully, dismantle the heater to remove and repair the problem fire tube. Thus, it would be desirable to have a convenient means for repairing a tube or pipe such as a fire tube in an industrial water heater that does not require removal of the problem tube or pipe from the environment in which it is installed.