Do you hardface your ground contact skids and shoes on your implements?

[Fixastuff]

I've never seen anyone hard face the entire head. The duck bill, yeah, but the hole head? You must be drilling in some nasty stuff. Any trouble with the son "hatch" fitting, or bolt holes not lining up from heat distortion?

No problems with door at all. I forgot to tell him there was a seal for water between the two half’s so that got cooked but I have replacements in truck so no big deal.

Drilling cobble rock and shale, sometimes hit boulders that have to be gone around the armor is needed.

 

[DarkBlack]

Whatever blows your dress up.

I take it, you didn’t appreciate his opinion?

 

[paulsharvey]

I take it, you didn’t appreciate his opinion?

It's not opinion on to do or not; just the counter argument I've heard on why some people Don't in certain applications.

Basically, easily replaced, cheap, items, it's often not worth it, or actually counter productive (motor grader cutting edge, where Straight is important); expensive or hard to replace items (a 30 ton hoe buckets runs about $24k), it's worth it.

You figure $150/hour, and multiple hours to do it; on a $300 cutting edge; that's false economy.

 

[Drstrangeglove]

The cable plows we use range from 12" to 46". They aren't made of hard metal . We hardface everything. Some of our plows are 40+ years old. They wouldn't last 3 months without.

 

[5030]

I never said I'd hardface a dirt or snowplow cutting edge. They come case hardened and tempered.

Far as my term 'blows your dress up'. denotes my somewhat agreement.

 

[5030]

With all your talk about your own fabrication business and machine shop. One would think when those shoes wear out you just do some reverse engineering and draw something up in cad and go out to the shop have your "employees" cut it out on your harbor freight plasma cutter and press brake.

Then you would not need to spend all that time laying down a bunch of welds with those top of the line harbor freight welders your preach about!

First off, I own a Shop Saber Sidekick CBC 4 x 12 plasma table and the plasma torch I run on that table is a Hyper Therm 80 amp unit with a cartridge torch and fine cut consumables. I will say the Pro-Tig 205 is one fine TIG machine with the addition of a water cooled torch. It's almost 100% plug and play actually.

Mist of the skids I hard rod are curved, not flat and to make them in the shop would be very time consuming and I do have to pay my employees so they need to be working on outside jobs, not my personal stuff. Much less expensive to buy them already made and just hard rod them as needed.

Finally, my 2 MIG machines (wire feed) are Hobart transformer machines I've owned for decades, the ones made here not offshore.

When good friend Howard, who is nuclear certified and works worldwide on Nuclear refits, tells me the Pro-Tig is better than his Miller Dynasty, I tend to believe him. He makes his living doing (welding high alloys) in Nuclear facilities. Wish I had his money actually. I have no idea what he makes but I'm pretty sure it's in the high 6 figures, maybe more. Lets just say, every time I see him, he's driving a different new Caddy Escalade, lives in the largest house up town, has a lawn service mow his lawn and plow his drive and his wife gets a new Caddy every year as well. I'm never jealous of anyone being successful and he's a real down to earh person as well and he taught me TIG welding and then gave me the AWS test which I passed. An AWS certification on exotic alloys is a difficult test to pass.

Additionally, I hunt with him on his land not far from the farm. He owns a pile of land around here, mostly wooded, has no desire to farm either. He like investing in vacant wooded land.

As you make the journey through life, you meet a lot of people but few remain friends. I have only a couple (besides my wife) and I'm all good with that.

 

[5030]

The cable plows we use range from 12" to 46". They aren't made of hard metal . We hardface everything. Some of our plows are 40+ years old. They wouldn't last 3 months without.

For me, sandy loam is a killer soil, it just abrades anything not hardfaced and quickly. I remember years back running a Woods belly mower on my long gone Farmall A and totally abraiding the skid shoes in less than a year. back then, new ones were reasonable. Today, nothing is reasonable which is another reason to hadface. Sure, good hardfacing wire isn't cheap, Lincon ground contact hard wire is just about 335 bucks per 10 pound spool but it's cheaper than replacing the ground contact skids by a long shot.

When I started hardfacing I was using stick rods. Problem with SMAW rods is they have to be preheated to at least 350 drgrees prior to using and the workpiece also has to be heated as well which for me is a royal PITA. With wire and shielding gas (100% CO), I don't have that issue. I've also used 75-25 with good results. Actually I prefer 75-25 simply because I don't have to change bottles to go from hard wire to mild steel wire. The issue with 75-25 is you have to be careful with your travel speed and amperage as the bead can crack.

One thing I actually like to do is welding and heavy fabrication. Not a matter what discipline either. I cut my teeth on O/A welding way back when and I still use my torches today though mostly for heating and bending but I still stick stuff together. Kind of miffed that I can no longer get metal coathangers. I stuck a ton of stuff together with them.

Nice thing about being proficient with O/A is it's a great primer for TIG welding as they are both 2 handed processes but instead of a torch, you use a Tungsten to heat the material and feed filler rod in with the other hand and unlike O/A, you have to keep the filler rod in the gas envelope at all times. You can TIG weld anything that conducts electricity. The issue is TIG welding is the slowest welding process but the end result if done correctly is asthetically pleasing.

 

[Drstrangeglove]

For me, sandy loam is a killer soil, it just abrades anything not hardfaced and quickly. I remember years back running a Woods belly mower on my long gone Farmall A and totally abraiding the skid shoes in less than a year. back then, new ones were reasonable. Today, nothing is reasonable which is another reason to hadface. Sure, good hardfacing wire isn't cheap, Lincon ground contact hard wire is just about 335 bucks per 10 pound spool but it's cheaper than replacing the ground contact skids by a long shot.

When I started hardfacing I was using stick rods. Problem with SMAW rods is they have to be preheated to at least 350 drgrees prior to using and the workpiece also has to be heated as well which for me is a royal PITA. With wire and shielding gas (100% CO), I don't have that issue. I've also used 75-25 with good results. Actually I prefer 75-25 simply because I don't have to change bottles to go from hard wire to mild steel wire. The issue with 75-25 is you have to be careful with your travel speed and amperage as the bead can crack.

One thing I actually like to do is welding and heavy fabrication. Not a matter what discipline either. I cut my teeth on O/A welding way back when and I still use my torches today though mostly for heating and bending but I still stick stuff together. Kind of miffed that I can no longer get metal coathangers. I stuck a ton of stuff together with them.

Nice thing about being proficient with O/A is it's a great primer for TIG welding as they are both 2 handed processes but instead of a torch, you use a Tungsten to heat the material and feed filler rod in with the other hand and unlike O/A, you have to keep the filler rod in the gas envelope at all times. You can TIG weld anything that conducts electricity. The issue is TIG welding is the slowest welding process but the end result if done correctly is asthetically pleasing.

I started using mig to hardface my excavator ripper last month. The 33lb spool was some where around $500+. My welder guy uses stick for now. We don't perheat anything and the hardface has held up well. We just need the operators to change them out when they wear the hard stuff off. There are others in the business that have ovens to heat the plows, but we never did.

 

[5030]

I started using mig to hardface my excavator ripper last month. The 33lb spool was some where around $500+. My welder guy uses stick for now. We don't perheat anything and the hardface has held up well. We just need the operators to change them out when they wear the hard stuff off. There are others in the business that have ovens to heat the plows, but we never did.

Some required pre heat some don't the SMAw sticks I have do 350 degrees both stick and workpiece so my toaster oven in the shop does double duty. Lincoln recommends preheat for their wires as well but I never have and they seem to lay down just fine I prefer not to as it makes it more complex. I've used 75-25 and 100% CO2.

 

[5030]

As a rule, I buy 10 pound spools. Lincoln 55 series is a tad over 350 bucks per spool and my LWS. Still less than total replacement, in some cases, quite a bit less.

Learning curve for me as to the direction to lay the HF beads. Have to be aligned witj the motion of the piece to be HF'd