360* Rotating Back Blade Project

[GuglioLS]

I mentioned that keyway because Larry was kind enough to machine that at his home for me. He was kind enough to cut it all the way through so now I had to plug it up where the oil seal has to ride around it.
................. Larry is going to owe me for life.

OOPS -

Larry is going to owe me for life ​

Rob,

Simply fantastic! - I could not have asked for a better Birthday present. Seeing all the work you have accomplished in what seems like a blink of an eye is just amazing! I know you have put allot of Time, blood, sweat, and tears into my gearbox, and thank you from the bottom of my heart.

How are you ever going to top this ? (Don't worry I have something in mind for you in trade for a couple minuets of my time hehehe.

Larry is going to owe me for life.

I'll owe you for the next several generations. Your great great great grandchildren will be all set! And to think, I got all this in trade for 9 minuets to fix Rob's Tractor - Wouldn't you say I'm a pretty good negotiator? (except for the owing him for life part) So what's a minor detail between friends anyway?

Esther and I are flying Rob and Loretta out here to New Mexico for a well deserved vacation. Just a small token of my appreciation for all he's done for me. I guess now I'm going to have to let him try out the gear box he so "graciously" made for me.

Thank you Rob!

Larry

p.s. When's shipping day? I need to fire up the forklift to get it off the truck.

 

[3RRL]

Larry,
I AM FINISHED WITH YOU GEAR BOX.

Here are the last photos I'll post before shipping it to you. I bolted everything down except the top plate to make sure it all moved freely without any binding. Sometimes when you tighten it all up, it seizes because something is fit too tight. So I checked it all and it's all good to go.
Here it is finished and assembled without the top plate.



Another view from the opposite side. It is set up to be tested using your hydraulic cylinder and my weak air pressure of 80psi.



I asked Loretta to take a video of it using air pumped through your hydraulic motor at 80psi, and it is tight (and should be because it's brand new). But I am certain it will function flawlessly with 2300psi hydraulic power of your tractor and run even better once broken in.
Here's the final video.



Thank you for patiently viewing the progress that took place here in my garage. Now I will be anxiously waiting to see what Larry's evaluation report will be once he receives the gear box. I am also dying to see the mounting and operation videos Larry is planning to share with us.
Thank you,

 

[montejw]

Mornin Montejw,
Well I could have never raised two kids and sent them to college on that kind of money ! I started my apprenticeship at 21, oh I guess that says how old I am I started in Feb 1972 at $3.15 per hour, and Im making about 10 times that 35 years later, still not a lot of money in todays world, but my wife does considerably better than me so it works

I do mostly engineering protype work on office equipment and paper handling protypes. Id rather be working on tractors, but it pays the bills

$3.15? Yikes. I guess that's what learn while you earn is all about.

Monte

 

[montejw]

I asked Loretta to take a video of it using air pumped through your hydraulic motor at 80psi, and it is tight (and should be because it's brand new). But I am certain it will function flawlessly with 2300psi hydraulic power of your tractor and run even better once broken in.

I bet the grit from grinding the flats on the shaft would help break the motor in.

Thank you for patiently viewing the progress that took place here in my garage. Now I will be anxiously waiting to see what Larry's evaluation report will be once he receives the gear box. I am also dying to see the mounting and operation videos Larry is planning to share with us.
Thank you,

Thank you for the pics and video. Very cool project.

Monte

 

[GuglioLS]

Rob,

WOW - very impressive and without a doubt over the top. I can hardly wait to get it installed onto the Blade to test it all out. It looks marvelous !

When it arrives, it will be a high priority to get it installed and to take videos of it in action so we can all see what it's truly capable of.

Thanks for taking on this ambitious project. Obviously - It was much more complicated and labor intensive than I originally imagined. But you made it look all too easy. And to top it all off you took the time to take pictures and video, document, and post all your work. From the day we met - It was clear to me, that you were the only one who could have pulled this off in such an informative and entertaining manner. You are a true miracle worker and I salute you on a suburb accomplishment in such a short period of time. I am just floored.

I guess I have to go on record now - "I owe you for life"

I bet you are super happy to get this project completed as it took up quite a bit of your precious time. I do believe you had some fun with it though. Do you think this project used just about every machine & tool in your shop? not to mention all the brain cells you strained working out all the details that I left to your imagination. (Actually this was duck soup for Rob - you should see some of the injection molds he's made)

I just cant get over how GOOD it Looks - man what a super fine job. Again you upheld your work ethic of "Only perfect will do" and this was certainly no exception. Superb craftsmanship at it's finest that you should be very proud of. The entire project is a work of art!
This is something that is no longer my dream, as your skills, determination and hard work have made it become reality for me.

I am in SHOCK and AWE this is a very special moment for me, as I have dreamed of having something exactly like this for nearly 25 years. You went way above and beyond the call of duty in exceeding my expectations on how this all turned out.

Now it's up to me to get it installed, connected, tested and submit my evaluation report.

Did this really happen? Somebody Pinch Me!

Please look forward to how this is all going to actually come together onto a 360* rotating Back Blade / Scraper Blade / Grader Blade or whatever you call them.

Hey that brings up a good question - What shall we call this thing? Any Idea's?


Larry

 

[Renze]

Hey that brings up a good question - What shall we call this thing? Any Idea's?

Hmm. a multidirectional grader ?

P.S. are you going to install gauge wheels ?

 

[nolefan]

Just stumbled across this thread and have spent the better part of an hour reading it. Although I know very little about machining I appreciate the pride that one takes in doing a job right. The time and quality of work that both of you are putting into this project is quite humbling. Great job to both of you and I look forward to the updates.

 

[GuglioLS]

Renze:

Thanks for the suggested name.

P.S. are you going to install gauge wheels ?

- Not at this time. I've used this type of blade extensively for many years and have not had a need for them (at least for me and what I use the blade for). No offense to all the great projects I've seen here where they have been installed, and I'm sure they work great, there not for me as they would just get in my way and I would most likely destroy them. After a while you get pretty darn good at feathering for a really smooth level surface. And I like to keep my TPH feathering skills sharp - One day if I ever loose the "magic touch", I suppose it will be time to install some "Training wheels".

As I ramble on, and get myself into trouble, you made me think - maybe some skid shoes should be in my future for winter snow plowing, now that's something I think would come in pretty handy. I hope your not sorry you asked.

Thanks -

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

Nolefan -

Thanks for the generous compliments - Rob (3RRL) is out of town for a couple of days. When he gets back, I'm sure he will appreciate your kind compliments. Rob sure did an awful lot of work on this project and I see you recognize that.

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

Now, just so you all know that I'm not just sitting around watching Rob do all this hard work for me. Here are a few pictures of the swing offset cylinder I am working on installing

I made some templates out of wood to figure out where to place the cylinder to get full range of swing motion. It took some basic trigonometry to find the right location to get full range of swing, along with full extension / retraction of the cylinder - here is where it will be mounted:

Center Position:


Swing LEFT: If you look in the center left of the photo you'll see the PTO coupling shaft that the rotating gear box Rob made for me will slip fit onto.


Swing RIGHT:


Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

This is a closer look of the mount from the other side:



And an overall shot of how far the swing is capable of moving:



Next is to complete the cylinder mounts (for both ends of the cylinder).
Make a mount for the Gear Box that Rob has completed and add a hydraulic valve to control the swing offset cylinder.


Larry

 

[MJPetersen]

Larry,

Where are you going to mount the valve to control the swing and rotation. The back of your tractor already looks like a plumbers nightmare. What with the two tilt cylinders and valves the toplink cylinder and valve--is that the center "joystick" control? will the joystick control the rotation too?

Mike

 

[ZJ_HR]

Larry, not sure that it will be good with position how did you set it up ???
Cylinder is too parallel with blade frame, and you will have big axial forces, when cross force will be low.
Put fixed bracket as far as possible right (look from rear side) to increase angle between frame and cylinder (visible when frame is straight) and put one cylinder on each side.
Maybe cylinder will survive, but mounting bracket will bend first time when you hit some stump.

I can't see from a pic how big is blade and tractor, so how strong everything will be.

Next suspition: that shear pin on rotating axle seems the weakest point on your construction. Look at ratio between force on one end of blade and on shear pin.
Locking pin, used before your modification, was on significally bigger radius, maybe 8" towards 1" now, and was about 1"dia, and your shear pin is maybe 1/2"

I'm supporting you on that project, and take my complaints in good faith.

 

[schmism]

Cylinder is too parallel with blade frame, and you will have big axial forces, when cross force will be low.

i agree, if you look at my landpride (aka ford) blade which is built for a hydrolic offset, nutral postion has the cylinder offset about 20deg. you can see the holes were the cylinder would be (it was removed in the pic as i was preping for paint)

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Rob,
As Larry just stated previously, very nicely done and an excellent job on the documentation !!!

Just a quick question, Im guessing that you have a very minimal amount of backlash between the worm and worm wheel so the backblade has next to no play ? Am I on target here ?

Thanks again for all the great pics and videos !

 

[GuglioLS]

MJPeterson - ....looks like a plumbers nightmare......will the joystick control the rotation too?

I guess it could be considered a plumber’s nightmare if it was all corroded, leaking and could not be access for repair. All the valves are conveniently located for easy access while in the seat, or standing behind hooking things up. I think all those valves, hoses, and raw hydraulic power at my fingertips are cool. It’s really not all that bad is it?

You are correct about that FEL joystick valve on the back of the seat, one spool will control Blade Rotation, the other spool for the Top Link. The valve for swing is installed in series with the FEL valve:



ZJ HR - ....Cylinder is too parallel with blade frame, and you will have big axial forces, when cross force will be low.....Locking pin, used before your modification, was on significally bigger radius, maybe 8" towards 1" now, and was about 1"dia, and your shear pin is maybe 1/2"

I agree about the parallel cylinder - The cylinder is placed such that there is close to 90* of swing – similar to a FEL grapple cylinder. When the cylinder is located further away from the swivel point, the range of swing motion is significantly reduced. To prevent failure, there will be a mechanical stop at each end of swing travel along the radius. This will hold the swing in place at the end of cylinder travel, reducing stress on the cylinder mount. I will show pictures once those stops are installed. The 1/2” shear bolt is to protect the teeth of the gears. This is a one of a kind experimental prototype, so I’m sure there will be some adjustments needed after I evaluate it’s performance.

Schmism –
That’s one beefy looking blade mount you got there. What is the range of swing you get with it? What is the retracted / extended distance between the clevis holes on your cylinder? Why are there two holes in the cylinder mount? Do you have to manually move the cylinder to different holes to get full range?

I thank everyone for all valuable feedback.
Larry

 

[3RRL]

Mornin Rob,
As Larry just stated previously, very nicely done and an excellent job on the documentation !!!

Just a quick question, Im guessing that you have a very minimal amount of backlash between the worm and worm wheel so the backblade has next to no play ? Am I on target here ?

Thanks again for all the great pics and videos !

Scott,
Yes, you are right on target. Most gears I've done have been place center to center using pitch diameters plus .004" to avoid binding. In this case, I placed them right on pitch diameter to avoid backlash.

 

[3RRL]

I finally got Larry's gearbox strapped to a pallet and FedEx came by a few minutes ago to pick it up. So it's on it's way to New Mexico today.



I added a couple eye bolts so Larry can lift it into position. Then he can take them out and replace them with the 3/8-16 SHCS that go in there. I also wrapped up the gear box and the "care package" with plastic after that picture was taken for it's journey home.

 

[GuglioLS]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the great news that the Gear Box is on it's way. You strapped it down good, so it will arrive safely.
Great picture of the completely assembled product. It will look even better when installed.

I'm pretty close to getting the swing cylinder installation finished. Today I completed the swing cylinder mount bracket, all that's left is to weld the bracket in place, make the mounts for the gear box - which fortunately are pretty simple.

Here is what I did today -
Used the rotary table to round the end of the cylinder mount:



Drilled a 1" hole for the cylinder clevis pin.
I think the drill is sharp based on the even shavings , and the fact it went through like butter.



Then I milled out a 1" x 2" slot right though the 1" thick bracket so that the clevis mount could never bend or break off:




All ready to weld:


Got dark on me So all I could do is get it ready to weld into place:



Larry

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Larry,
Nice work ! BTW, did you notice how Rob included an eye hook on that gear case ?