Project 1 from Rambozo. Category: General Welding repair

First project for the contest, just the kind of work I hate to do. Hot, messy, rush job, and missing materials. Oh well, someone has to do it. Needed to fix both skids on a 60" flail mower.

Kinda worn out.
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Cut a couple of new skids from half inch thick abrasive plate steel.
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Of course the shop is minus a bunch of stuff out on loan, one of which is the torch, so I ended up cutting a groove in them with a cutoff wheel about a quarter inch deep, then bending on the groove and welding the groove shut, instead of heating and bending. Welded them back to the mounting pieces. All with 7018AC and an old Miller Thunderbolt AC buzzbox. It's about the only thing left around here, but it worked fine.
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What it had trouble with is the hardfacing I put on the bottom. I was only able to get 5/32 hardfacing rod instead of 1/8 and that little Miller had it's tongue out for that. AC is not the way to go, but it works and I'm hoping this will increase the lifespan. This mower is only about a year old and has not had a lot of use, but plenty of abuse. And of course it has to go out first thing in the morning for a job.
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Would have never have known you were disadvantaged in terms of having the right equipment on hand. You did a great job. Question for you, how did you determine the pattern to use for the hardfacing? I hear there are some pretty differing views on this and was just curious how you came about the pattern you used. Cheers.

I copied what I have seen on the sides of excavator buckets. Lincoln electric has a nice white paper on the subject. For best wear on dirt, you lay the beads across the path of motion, for rocks you lay the beads along the path of motion. This one has to deal with dirt and rocks, so I did the crosshatch pattern, then ran one last bead down the middle just for the hell of it.

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Originally Posted by Rambozo

I copied what I have seen on the sides of excavator buckets. Lincoln electric has a nice white paper on the subject. For best wear on dirt, you lay the beads across the path of motion, for rocks you lay the beads along the path of motion. This one has to deal with dirt and rocks, so I did the crosshatch pattern, then ran one last bead down the middle just for the hell of it.

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Thanks. Happen to have a link for that white paper? I'll google so no worries if you don't happen to have it handy.

Cool, thanks for the link! :D

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Originally Posted by undercut

Thanks. Happen to have a link for that white paper? I'll google so no worries if you don't happen to have it handy.

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http://www.lincolnelectric.com/asset...ture/C7710.pdf

Hard to believe the machine is only a year old, with that kind of wear and tear! Did you get a look at the cutting area? Not sure if that one has blades or hammers, but if the skids were in that condition, I can only imagine what the cutters look like.

Sure doesn't look like a rush job, nicely done.

Thanks for the Lincoln literature, another fountain of info to learn from.

Repair looks nice, a lot prettier than it needs to be for an ag implement.

If that is only a year old, I think the operator needs a bit more training before he gets back out there!

It probably should be a hammer & knife , but it's just a flail with pretty lightweight cutters. It's on the second set of those. I'm not sure this tractor has enough HP to run a big hammer knife, and the operators might just get into more trouble. My guess is that they don't have the three point set right and were dragging it on the skids more than the rear roller. It goes into some really rough areas with all kinds of debris hidden under the weeds, so who knows. I might even try hardfacing the next set of blades and see if that helps their life. As long as they don't bring it back in pieces, it looks like a win around here.

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Originally Posted by Rambozo

It probably should be a hammer & knife , but it's just a flail with pretty lightweight cutters. It's on the second set of those. I'm not sure this tractor has enough HP to run a big hammer knife, and the operators might just get into more trouble. My guess is that they don't have the three point set right and were dragging it on the skids more than the rear roller. It goes into some really rough areas with all kinds of debris hidden under the weeds, so who knows. I might even try hardfacing the next set of blades and see if that helps their life. As long as they don't bring it back in pieces, it looks like a win around here.

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Not sure if this is good news or bad news but given the amount of wear and the high possibility of nothing changing in the way they use it, this could be a recurring source of revenue ....

I get some back hoe buckets at my shop to repair use truck leaf springs to build build up the blades . and face them tough steel . good article http://www.technologystudent.com/equip1/heat1.htm

Which hard facing rods did you use?

Lincoln wearshield rod lincoln make a hard face mig wire also besides stick

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Originally Posted by SeanMurphy265

Which hard facing rods did you use?

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I ordered Lincoln Wearshield ME. I got Stoody 31. It's rated as a moderate abrasion metal-to-earth rod, so it's all good. I never figured out the best technique to put it down. No matter how many amps I dialed in I had some welds that went great, and some that didn't. It seemed like I got the best results with a drag motion and a lot of rod angle. I would have liked to try DC as I bet that would have really helped, but I didn't have the time to put together something to adapt the cables. It seems like every welder here has a different cable setup.
I really need to get a nice Everlast machine that I can actually carry around without needing to use the forklift.

stoody good rod welds nice found works better if heated before using heat it in a oven welds real nice

hey those old heavy welders work great for hard facing and stick welding use to have a big gas miller stick welder worked awesome stick welding