Loader Cracking rear long length weld

[fmargolis]

It has a quarter inch wide crack on loader bucket on the long weld at the back bottom about 2/3 the length. Not unstable. The curved surface inside the bucket is fine. Just the perpendicular where the bottom plate and back plate make a 90 degree in the back. Want to weld or have welded. Cost to have welded?? If I bought a stick welder and used 7018 what Voltage 110 or 220 would I need? 110v more portable for other jobs. 220v line only in my garage. So if tractor can not be moved ever for some reason and need to weld something on it I can not use a 220v welder. If gonna spend $200-500 for welder want to make sure weld is strong enough for the FEL repair but want flexibility to weld elsewhere on property or even on the B26 if it can not be moved. If cheaper to have a pro do in case I never use the welder again, please advise me approx cost. Thanks

 

[Baby Grand]

A picture of the crack would be helpful. 80-90% of the time I'm "welding" is spent on joint preparation and after weld peening, slag/spatter removal, then finish grinding and blending in prep for painting. Getting a good, strong weld takes practice. Spend a lot of time prepping and welding scrap pieces before you attempt to weld anything of value. Removing a bad weld, then prepping to reweld takes much more time than just spending the time to get it well prepped from the start.

 

[repete]

Do not learn to weld on something that needs to be correct. Take it off, put it in a truck and head to a welding shop and take advantage of the time there to discuss why it fractured in the first place. Making those connections with a local welding shop can pay dividends in the future on other projects.

 

[Montana Rick]

Good answer repeat

 

[Tractor Seabee]

If you are serious about learning to weld; get a used 230A AC buzz box. They are available all the time on CL, garage sales, and auctions. Do not pay over $100 as that is the max going price unless there is something special like 100' of cable. Never pay extra for open container welding rod, tell them to keep it or throw it in for 0. Then practice, practice and practice some more. Take a course at your local tech school or community college. I will pay you dividends over sending it out all the time plus controlling your down time. The there is "Soul Satisfaction". You will soon be moving up to better. Do not overlook O/A welding either.

I buy, sell, trade this stuff from time to time. I have paid as little as $30 at garage sales and $50 at auctions then sell on CL for $100. On these buzz boxes; in genera, one brand is a good as another except, for part availability. Most of the off brand are China clones of major brands and or produced for corporations like Sears under there name by a name brand. ESAB, formerly Victor, has bought out a lot of other brands and still part support them. Lincoln and Miller produce several different brands. Some times I have to make minor repairs or cleaning/painting. Beyond that they are either parts or scrap. Not many original brands, that we all know, are left. HF is really into the market. Their stuff is clones of major brands for the most part. Some even made by the same Chinese factory. There O/A torches are clones of Victor, all three the 300, 100, and J series. I have all of them and never had one not work properly. I can sell a an O/A package with mixed HF and Victor clone pieces and really provide a bargain. Just sold a Victor 300 set with filled cylinders and a cart for $500 which is $750 less than buying all new Victor Journeyman set w/ cylinders and cart.

Ron

 

[mikester]

Do not learn to weld on something that needs to be correct. Take it off, put it in a truck and head to a welding shop and take advantage of the time there to discuss why it fractured in the first place. Making those connections with a local welding shop can pay dividends in the future on other projects.

Good advice - contrary to whats learned at duct tape and channel locks repair school.

 

[k0ua]

Everyone has opinions. Here are some of mine. Yes, it would not be a good idea to "learn how to weld" on such an important piece as your bucket. You learn how to weld on scrap, graduating to things that aren't all that important, and once you have some skill then tackle important projects like your bucket. You saw the link I posted elsewhere of my bucket repair. But I had been welding on and off for about 30 years previous. No don't get me wrong I am NOT a weldor. Just learned to repair and fab up some things. I too started with an AC "buzzbox" a Lincoln AC225. I bought it new however. It served me well for many years but I traded it off when I got my DC inverter welder.

In my opinion it makes much cleaner welds and allows use of 7018 rod. Sure there is a 7018 AC rod too which you can use with a buzzbox, but I never tried any when I had it. I always just used 6011 for heavy repairs and 6013 for light materials. Another advantage of the DC inverter welder is light weight, small size and portability. It is 220 volt only in my case, although they make them that will run on 110/220 volts.

As for the weld on the bucket, you will need some 1/8 inch 7018 at 125 amps. You will need a 220 volt source voltage to make this weld. You might get away with smaller rod and multipass, but that would be a compromise.

So will an AC buzzbox "git 'er done?" Yes it will, but you will really appreciate a modern DC inverter welder with much less spatter, better rod selection, light weight transportability and easy storage. And there is just a certain smoothness to DC welding that you just don't get with an AC welder. Of course price may be a consideration, and AC buzzboxes are a dime a dozen. They are simple and they are what everyone get's when they want to learn to stick weld. However, so many people give up in failure learning to stick weld. So they sell them for cheap. That is why the market is flooded with them.

I never said learning to stick weld was extremely easy. It is not. But it is rewarding. It is simple, very cost effective, and very easy to change setup with different rods and heat settings. It is also adaptable and works in all weather.

 

[cathy liebchen]

spend $100 and get a welding shop to fix it correctly

 

[k0ua]

A picture of the crack would be helpful. 80-90% of the time I'm "welding" is spent on joint preparation and after weld peening, slag/spatter removal, then finish grinding and blending in prep for painting. Getting a good, strong weld takes practice. Spend a lot of time prepping and welding scrap pieces before you attempt to weld anything of value. Removing a bad weld, then prepping to reweld takes much more time than just spending the time to get it well prepped from the start.

Absolutely. Joint prep is what it is all about. Actual arc time for welding up a crack would be very short.

This bucket repair took quite some time to prepare the joint, but a very short time to weld it.

https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/welding/249487-oh-no-my-bucket-broken.html?highlight=bucket

 

[JWR]

Do not learn to weld on something that needs to be correct. Take it off, put it in a truck and head to a welding shop and take advantage of the time there to discuss why it fractured in the first place. Making those connections with a local welding shop can pay dividends in the future on other projects.

Absolutely ! Learning to weld and investing in some equipment is a good move for many tractor owners, but Repete puts it exactly right -- do not 'learn' on this !!

 

[5030]

Conventional welding is 90% prep and 10% welding technique unless it's TIG but chances are a backyard welder will never run a TIG machine anyway.

 

[k0ua]

Conventional welding is 90% prep and 10% welding technique unless it's TIG but chances are a backyard welder will never run a TIG machine anyway.

I am something less than a "backyard welder" and TIG is my favorite process. All I have is scracth start on my little DC inverter with a 17V torch.

 

[Hiptfarms]

If you do decide to weld it yourself, just don't go buying a whole bunch if 7018 rods at one time. They should be kept in an oven to work optimally. And even if you take the bucket to a welding shop, I still recommend getting a welder and learning to use it. My first welding project was 185 ft of ornamental fence. It turned out great and I had never picked up a welding gun in my life. It was actually fun. Since then I've taken a short welding class at a local tech school and used my time there to get some experience using stick, mig, and tig as well as using a torch. It was a very good experience.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Anyone with a tractor and equipment should have a welding machine and heating apparatus of some sort. Things always bend and break and it is not practical to take everything to a shop to fix (that is my opinion). I have taught many classes in welding at both OJT(On Job Training) and college level course and they all start with stick welding, then after proficient at that, we start teaching TIG. In some ways TIG is much easier since it is a slower process and is usually more forgiving of a mistake. MIG is the last thing to teach even though it seems the easiest at first try. MIG is so fast that a beginner can put down enough bad weld in 30 seconds that would take 10 minutes to grind out.
Stick welding is probably the easiest to learn. You only need to control arc length and travel speed once the correct amperage is set. Lots of folks think MIG is easiest but there are so many things that can go wrong with MIG that will be catastrophic to the strength of the weld.

With a little bit of hands on instruction like you might get at a local college, basic stick welding can be learned in 2-3 weeks of practicing 2 hours per night x 3 nights per week if you have the natural ability. However, some students never make a good welder even with a thousand hours of practice. This is why I suggest that you enroll in a welding class to get the basics learned (if you a naturally inclined) prior to purchasing a machine. You will then determine which process better suits your needs. Then you will just need practice to get better.

For my farm needs, I only have a nice AC/DC stick machine and an oxy-acetylene torch (both bought used) and with those I can fix anything that breaks or bends. I could add a TIG torch and a bottle of argon if I needed to weld a bunch of light gauge stuff, but so far in 10 years of having my "farm", I havent needed to use TIG.

 

[nikerret]

Post a picture of the crack.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

It is cheaper to get into arc welding than it is O/A. You can get a good used name brand used AC/DC machine for less than the cylinders cost for O/A. A 230 amp AC machine can be picked up for $100 +/- I picked up a used Miller Dial Arc 250 yesterday for $200. Works great. Uses 50A breaker on 240V though. I wonder if anyone buys new O & A cylinders any more. That will set you back over $400 for medium size ones and then you have to fill them for another $60 or so. I have bought used ones for under $100. Always have 2-3 sets setting round.

Ron

 

[Dave M7040]

Welding on machinery is a good way to damage electronics on the machine.

Dave M7040

 

[nyone]

Lol you guys all have a billion reasons for this guy to not weld it him self...yet its a crack thats going to get drug through the dirt.

Clean it well inside and out and mig weld it. Any new welder should start with a mig welder. Watch a few you tube tutorials and go to work.

 

[Fallon]

Lol you guys all have a billion reasons for this guy to not weld it him self...yet its a crack thats going to get drug through the dirt.

Clean it well inside and out and mig weld it. Any new welder should start with a mig welder. Watch a few you tube tutorials and go to work.

Learning to weld on a trailer or something potentially life damaging in the event of a failure is a very bad idea. Catastrophic failure of a weld on a bucket or most tractor impliments is usually only harmful to your ego.

I mostly know what I'm doing & will wrld on impliments all the time. I still wont weld on my trailers or anything potentially life threatening in the event of failure on a vehicle.

Tractor welding is a great place to learn due to the frequent abuse & need to patch things back together & low penalty for failure.

 

[nyone]

Hes talking about a crack on the back bottom of the loader bucket. Thats a high wear area if you curl and back drag. Seeing that its 2/3 across the bucket i would assume its not structual. Its the perfect place to start welding.

Its ok to be afraid to weld.