Bevel prep for T joint?

[Cord]

Succeeded in breaking my log splitter this past weekend. Since I built it 15 years ago, it's been pretty reliable, but looking back I was really pushing my luck. A curly piece of wood got stuck in the head and I was trying to clear it using another piece of wood to push it through. Well, that second piece of wood had a layer of frost on it and it shot out like it had been loaded into a cannon. The 40lb chunk punched a lady standing next to the splitter in the gut and it took her right off her feet. She flew back about 3' and landed on a pile wood debris. The landing looked fairly gentle with her feet rotating up in the air. Rung her bell pretty well on the frozen ground but is otherwise ok. I can't believe she doesn't have broken ribs.

Looking at the splitter, when that piece of wood shot out it totally sheared the head off the rail. The metal piece that broke was 3/4" thick and 6" long. It ripped the metal lengthwise. The there was no discernable grain to the metal. Amazingly, my welds didn't fail. It's going to be a major project, but I already have new material on order and will be beefing it up. I need to get some pictures, but now just work off the description. I will be welding a T joint between two very thick pieces of metal. The vertical member is a 3/4" bar that has a fillet weld on both sides of the end. One side was then reinforced with a piece of 1/2" metal. There are three welds with the inner weld being concealed by the reinforcement. The horizontal member will be the 1" plate that I'm replacing. I'm seriously thinking about Ving out the T joint so I can get better penetration into the center of the joint. Thoughts on this? Due to access reasons, I think the V will be asymmetrical with the larger weld being on the outside. I've never welded anything so thick, so I could use some parameters. I'll be using GMAW, .045 and C02 and a 350a machine. I presume this needs to be preheated to keep it from warping? Once I start welding, should I stop to control the temps or keep making passes? Because all of the weld is on one side of the new 1" plate, I'm somewhat concerned about it warping. I presume I can help this by heating the backside?

 

[yomax4]

I think you have the right idea. What wire did you choose? Pre-heat never hurts . Bevel for sure. I't will move around when you tack it. I did a broken forklift fork back in the day but I was able to use a huge vise and jig it up pretty good. When I did the 1st tack it moved. I did 2 more on the back side and it moved back where it was ( got lucky). Preheated to 500 and started the welds in the center and worked out. I let it cool a bit for the 1st few passes and then just welded it up after it looked like it wasn't going to tweak. It turned out pretty good and is still in use. I've watched welders doing thick material with 1/16" dual shield and they just keep laying the beads and really don't let anything cool. I can relate to the flying wood. I had a similar piece pop and fly and broke my finger and sprained my wrist in a split second. Another one to a lessor degree I had a pop hit me in the boys. That'll set you down in a hurry. Always turn sideways on a tough split. Good luck on the repair.

 

[Cord]

I have .035 and .045 ER70S-6 and switch between them depending on the material thickness. If I need a heavier wire I'd have to change the liner and don't own the drive rolls.

 

[yomax4]

I have .035 and .045 ER70S-6 and switch between them depending on the material thickness. If I need a heavier wire I'd have to change the liner and don't own the drive rolls.[/QUO

I was just wondering if you were using hard wire or dual shield. S6 045 works.

 

[Cord]

Solid core. I'm thinking I might need to brush up on my spray transfer skills. Now I'm getting nervous.

 

[yomax4]

Naa. It will work. I'm not a fan of the heavy steel projects but they come and go. You'll get it.

 

[Cord]

Well, here are the carnage pics. Looks like there was a very old crack under the start of a weld.

 

[jasonzee]

I'm upgrading my spliter and I am using stick 7018.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

The way that is fractured it is a tough job for a wire feed. It will take a lot of grinding and just fill in welding. Can you make a new member and get rid of the fractured piece? If welding is the only option, I would use SMAW probably 5/32 or 3/16 to reduce number of passes. Definitely need to compensate for warping. I could not recommend how, w/o seeing the whole thing and evaluate. Even bevel both side and welding sides off and on will help a lot. 60 degree bevel at least. The root passes are the most important to clean well and not leave any slag deposits as they will reflect out on each subsequent pass.

Ron

 

[Cord]

Yea, I'm planning to replace it with some 1" plate. This will be a tough repair. Ordered a larger torch tip last night just so I could get through the existing welds.

 

[zzvyb6]

Of course, the reason it broke in the first place is because your bolt array produced a hinge at the crack line. A HUGE bending moment from the upward thrust of the wedge. Why not cut off the broken plate, make a replacement and add the holes and bolts in a pattern needed to restrain the stop properly.

If you weld it, the extra bolts are still needed. Otherwise its gonna be a "fool me twice episode".

 

[Cord]

Actually, it broke because the head twisted sideways.

 

[zzvyb6]

But that's not a twisting failure. Otherwise the two pieces would not marry together like your picture shows. And simply welding it back together would take some metal re-forming. That crack was probably expanding from underneath for a while. Even with a twisting moment, a bolt pattern at all corners would likely prevent this.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Yea, I'm planning to replace it with some 1" plate. This will be a tough repair. Ordered a larger torch tip last night just so I could get through the existing welds.

A scarfing tip may work better or maybe a carbon arc, beings you have a high amp welder.

Ron

 

[Cord]

A scarfing tip may work better or maybe a carbon arc, beings you have a high amp welder.

Ron

I was looking at the those in the catalog, but I've never used, much less seen one. I ended up ordering a typical tip that was bent 30 degrees and was rated for 3".

 

[Rancher Ed]

Cord,
I'm having difficulty picturing what exactly you will be welding from the description and pictures. However, based on your description here are my thoughts.

Beveling your 3/4" vertical member is definitely advisable. If possible I recommend beveling both sides of it equally at ~45 degrees to a point in the center. Beveling all the way to a point will allow you to make a full-penetration weld with reinforcement on each side. This is how lifting eyes are welded onto equipment. Due to the thickness you would obviously have multiple passes on each side but this is a picture of what the cross-section would look like.

If you can bevel both sides equally and alternate which side you are welding on you should have minimal distortion. If you have to weld more on one side of the T than the other the vertical piece will pull toward the side with more weld, and the easiest way to counter this is to allow for the movement in your setup. Pre-heating has many benefits but do not expect it to prevent the vertical member from pulling toward the side with more weld metal. If this is some type of high strength steel you should keep it below 800F but there is no other need to let it cool between passes.

Based on the provided pictures of the fracture I'm pretty sure it failed all in one day. If the crack initiated weeks or months ago and was slowly propagating with each use the old portion of the crack should be darker and potentially show signs of corrosion. As it is the entire fracture face is the same bright shiny color.

 

[Cord]

Thanks, that confirmed what I was thinking. Prepping on the inside might be a bit difficult, but I think I can get it after torching the broken plate off.

 

[Cord]

Got the old brackets torched off. Cleaned up the slag and then torched in the bevels. I bought a grooving torch tip. It cuts terribly, but man it notches beautifully! I made the lengthwise passes on the 3/4 plate to create the bevel. I then cut off the 1/2 reinforcement plate that was on the side. Look at how clean it got the surface! Just a little weld to clean up. No over cutting at all.

 

[jgriffin1720]

Why not use some fresh oven baked 5/32 or 3/16 7018 for this? I would not use short arc solid wire mig for this. It's too thick and too safety critical. If you had dual shield or could get some 90/10 for spray transfer, that would be better. To get the correct fillet size your going to need at the very minimum a three pass fillet weld, probably 5 or 6 passes on the beveled welds, with .045 wire and even with your welder it's gonna be cranked up pretty high. Pre heat needs to be around 350 to prevent cracking and your gonna need to keep an eye on temps between passes. Also let it cool slow, cover it with a welding blanket or something, and I wouldn't do this out in the cold winter air without a big propane torch or a rose bud to keep it warm for a few hours after your done.

 

[Cord]

Well, it took me three full days to do it, but I finished it last night. Ironically, it was 2.5 days of prep for one hour of welding. I have a 300 amp gun and it was getting too hot to hold. The setting I had was right on the transition between globular and spray. If I ran the bead too fast it would switch to spray. Suppose I could have turned up the bolts just a little and keep it in spray, but the setup was working I wasn稚 messing with it.

Had some help come over today and three of us split all day. Not certain just how much we did, but it was enough to fill 8 IBC cages

The attached pics are the hard facing on the wear surfaces.