My Gantry Crane Build

[av8or1]

Although I worked until 7:30 I decided to at least make a start on the new end suspension components. At the root, these will consist of a 1/2" plate on the top and bottom, with a C6 channel mounted vertically on one end. I'll weld on an outer and inner piece to that channel in order to increase the hub thickness and thus strength. But first thing's first: the root for one end. This was my fitup:


I ran my usual 6010 root with 7018 fill and/or cap passes. Unfortunately due to the late start I could only manage to get the first root package completed. I should have gotten it into primer, but was in a rush to get inside and help the wife with the lil' un. Didn't even have enough time to snap a decent picture of it, but did manage to get one in passing as I was closing up shop for the night:


There is no plan to grind any of these welds beyond slag removal. I know I got good penetration and since these welds will live behind a wheel and a tire (and because it's a gantry crane and not a show car) I'll just leave them as-is, then primer and paint right over them. Slag removal will be done, yes, but that'll be the extent of it. Kinda nice to not worry about grinding welds.

Anyway that's all I have for tonight. Hope everyone is well.

[av8or1]

With my work continuing each night until at least 7 pm, there hasn't been much time to work on the gantry-on-wheels project. However I did manage to get the first two root-package end supports completed and into primer:


I did my usual 6010 root and 7018 cap passes. I got good penetration on both and again, I won't grind these welds. I'll just let 'em be as-is.

Hopefully I can keep this pace of at least making some meager progress each night. We'll see. TBD.

Anyway thanks!

[av8or1]

'Tell you fellas what: work is downright nuts these days. Had to tend to that for most of the day (weekends are usually off, but when necessary, well...gotta do what you gotta do). Again, no complaints, as it's what puts the goods on the table. So I found a place to put it on pause about 6:30 and got my tail up to get outside for a break. Decided to make what progress I could on the gantry. I still had to put together two more of the root packages, so I was hoping to polish that much off at a minimum. I would get close, but not quite. Anyway, I snapped a few pictures along the way. The idea behind those is merely to convey the general idea of how I'm fitting these up, running the 6010 root and 7018 fills/caps. Wherever possible I establish a bevel and land. Not much of a gap, if any. Here is an example from (I think) the third of four of these critters:


I just laid 4 tacks on the sides then stood them up for the weld-out (which I did after a wire wheel to get to bare metal):


It was well over 100F today, so in full gear I found myself putting out a fair amount of the wet stuff myself. Had to stop a few times just to cool off a bit. However I pushed through.

[av8or1]

One of my 6010 root passes:


As I recall I ran out of rod and had to restart mid-way through that one. I'll run 7018 passes with 50% overlap over these root beads; but I wouldn't get to that today. Available time was exhausted and I had to get inside to help the wife with the lil' un. So I laid down some weld-through primer and called it a night:


Hopefully I can polish these off tomorrow. It's likely that I'll need to work most of the day again though, so we'll see.

[av8or1]

The 275p did its job today:


So far it's worked well for me. Granted I don't use it everyday but still it has been reliable on the occasions that I have used it. Funny but I've only used it to do any MIG welding once. I suspect that the Everlast folk might get a kick out of that, because I recall that one video in which Mark stated that the 275p is a MIG welder that happens to do to stick welding too. The message I took away from that video was that the SMAW function was more of a happenstance than a purpose WRT this particular welder. Interestingly enough though, at the time I was searching and found the 275p I was specifically and explicitly on the hunt for a welder that could do these two particular processes. Of primary importance when deciding to opt for an inverter based box was that box's ability to do 6010 well. The 275p was reported to meet those specific needs and so with the warranty in mind I had found my box. In short, I wouldn't have bought the 275p if it had been a MIG-only critter.

I digress. Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

[av8or1]

Not much time this Sunday either. I did manage to lay down the 7018 stringers:


And get the final two root packages into primer:


So that's something. Now I gotta work again tonight. 'Prolly until 1 or 2. lol

Y'all take care.

[av8or1]

Same MO as previous nights: work until 7 or 7:30 then rush to the outbuilding to see what progress I can make in the time available.

Tonight I wanted to weld the outer plates onto the root suspension components. So I trimmed those pieces to length via the chop saw and a cut off wheel, then welded them with a single 3/32 7018 pass:


A couple of examples:


The 3/32 wasn't enough to bring the weld bead to the same height as the top of the 1/4" plate, but there also wasn't any undercut so I'm fine with it. I'll run passes along the sides (hopefully tomorrow) and that will be plenty for the task that these outer pieces are intended to serve. And that purpose is merely to increase the support area for the spindle as it passes through the mounting hole on the C-channel. But knowing me I'll likely revisit this and lay down another bead or two. I do enjoy welding, so...

[av8or1]

Anyway before I knew it they were finished:


It was, unfortunately, getting rather late and as always I needed to get inside to help the wife get the lil' un into bed (that can be a task sometimes ). Therefore I had to apply the primer and set these aside for the night:


Maybe I will be able to continue with such meager progress tomorrow. TBD.

Thanks!

[av8or1]

Busy work week. Only had brief windows of opportunity to do anything on the gantry-on-wheels project. So over the past two or three nights I managed to get some inner support plates cut out of the raw material that I was originally intending to use as the primary supports. I passed on that idea, thinking that they might not have the necessary strength. However with enough slicing and dicing (which was rather time consuming and limited because of the physical dimensions of the chop saw) I had 4 inner plates. Here's the general idea, with the hub and spindle in place:


The purpose that these will serve is two-fold:
1) Provide an additional amount of overall thickness of plate material upon which the spindle will rest (and be welded into place)
2) By setting these plates back just a bit from the inner side of the c-channel, they will provide additional support for the spindle (akin to having a second hand on the back of your chainsaw)

At present, I plan on there being about a 1/4" gap between the inner support plate and the c-channel. I plan on welding the spindle to the c-channel, welding in strips of the plate that I had cut out (which are 1/4" thick) between the inner support plate and the c-channel to function as spacers and plate support. I'll then weld the inner support plate to the c-channel and the spindle to the inner support plate. Thus it'll be double-welded into position. That should provide adequate support as an overall package. I left about 1/16" gap around the spindle, so the penetration should be good to boot:

[av8or1]

This picture illustrates the gap between the inner support plate and the c-channel:


Finally, I plan on installing a shim on the outer plate between that plate and the spindle's mounting flange. I'll do this on the top side so that there will be a slight inward angle to the wheels. This will make the gantry roll and turn easier. Kinda analogous to the front wheels on those "old timey tractors" (to borrow a phrase from my 5 year old son!):


Though in the final product my wheels won't come near that much angle mind you. There will at least be some though and that will help.

[av8or1]

So that was the fitup. Tonight's goal was to weld the vertical edges of the outer plates to the c-channel:


I tacked them in place in the middle on the sides a few nights ago, but they needed welding-out:


Just a single 7018 pass, 3/32" (trying to finish off that can dontchaknow).

[av8or1]

I knew I wouldn't have time to get around to welding the spindles nor the inner support plates tonight, so I thought I'd at least get the prep done:

[av8or1]

I only hope that I'll be able to circle the wagons back around to this project over the weekend, so with that in mind I put the vertical welds into rusty metal primer (which I would have done anyway since they will remain as-is until paint) and then weld-thru primer on the inner support plates:


And at that point it was time to get inside and do my duties as dad.

Hope all is well, y'all take care!

[av8or1]

Had family stuff going on most all day today. Only a little time in the evening for the project. Oh well, family first dontchaknow.

It was time to mount the axles into the end supports. The first task was to decide how much angle I wanted to establish for the spindles. Depending on what that number was, I would then need to decide on what and how to shim the axle flange. After conducting the briefest of research, I decided that 5 degrees would suit this application. As it would turn out, that was about the limit of what the difference in diameter between the spindles and end support plates would allow. So it seemed kinda meant-to-be. I found some thin flat bar and mocked it up:

[av8or1]

This flat bar yielded just the angle I was after, or at least right-close to it:


So I cut them to length and put them into weld-thru primer:

[av8or1]

A quick second mockup painted a good picture, so I decided to go with it:


So it all came back apart so that I could run the flap disc on it. Since time was limited as always, I managed to get only the 6010 root pass on two of the four, then put those into weld-thru primer for the night:


Out of view to the right in the above picture was a fan. I do that partly to assist in fume "extraction", and that coupled with my respirator allows me to feel better about SMAW. Today though I brought that fan in quite close in order to keep the axles as cool as I could during the weld. I took my time, didn't rush through it and allowed the fan to do its thing. That seemed to help, which was to-the-good. I would rather not remove the hub from the spindles then reinstall them if I can avoid it. I have enough work with relatively limited time as it is.

Anyway thanks, hope all is well.

[av8or1]

Today's work involved the 6010 root passes on the outer side of the 2 remaining axle spindle flanges. Once that was done, I put all 4 on the table and ran the 7018 pass one at a time on each of them in an effort, combined with the fan, to maintain relatively low heat on the units as a whole:


The 7018 passes done, I laid down the primer and let them dry:


It was hot today so I took advantage of the dry time to remove myself from the heat a bit.

[av8or1]

It was then time to turn them upside down and weld the first set of beads around the spindle, joining it to the c-channel:


This would be a bit challenging, as I planned on laying down both a 6010 and a 7018 pass around the spindle. I could not merely rotate the assembly because the legs would impact the stinger; the angle to avoid that would be excessive and would likely result in undercut. So I had to approach it in piece meal fashion. Other than that access would be generally good:

[av8or1]

So I laid down the 6010 on each, again one at a time to avoid putting too much heat into them. I then cleaned the slag off of those welds and laid in the 7018 passes on each, one at a time. I also took short breaks in-between each component to allow the fan to do its thing. Anyway, once all of that was done, I put them into primer:


And left it there for the night. I did a quick test-fitment of the inner supports on each unit. Those slid into place nicely, no issues. So I'm good there. Fabricating the supports for those and welding all of that into place, in addition to welding the spindle to the inner support will be the next steps in the process. At that point, paint will be the next time on the agenda for these critters prior to calling them 'done'.

Admittedly, I had wanted to get further along this weekend, as work will pick up considerably this week and likely remain that way for at least a couple of weeks. It's unlikely that I'll be able to work on the project during that time. So if you don't hear anything from me for a while, well that'll be why.

Funny how work gets in the way of your projects isn't it?

Thanks

[Rambozo]

I would think there would be a bit too much heat for the grease seals. You might have to change them after all the welding.