Counter Weight

[TexasBoy]

I threw together a counter weight yesterday, guess we will see how it behaves and if it helps load balance on the FEL.

I had a small KingKutter blade a friend had given me because he had put it behind a very large tractor and bent it up really bad and ruined it. But the front 3-point area was okay so I had kept it around thinking I would convert it to something eventually. I have a good friend who owns a machine shop and he does rough-out machining on large oil-field forgings. Some of these items are 3-5 tons a piece, stainless, you name it. He had a flawed forging that we are guessing is about 650# and a smaller chunk he had used to set his machine up to do radius work, that piece was about 200# or so.

So I cut the back off that ruined blade and welded it to that forging, then put that radius'd chunk on as a cap, burned it all together and brought it home last night. Going to fill in the left over void in the middle with Sacrete tonight and once that dries hook it up and see what it does. Only have a handful of 7018s and a few squirts of acetylene invested so far, so it wont be a big loss if it doesnt work out.

 

[k0ua]

I don't see why it would't work..sure would not want to drop that on your toe

 

[TexasBoy]

I don't see why it would't work..sure would not want to drop that on your toe

You got that right, that thing is heavy. Everything he does in that shop is moved with overhead crane and done very slowly to not have accidents. Some of those solid chunks he moves in & out of the lathe are crazy heavy.

 

[ENC]

Looks about like schedule 40 pipe

 

[Thomas]

That will cause damage if back into something..yikes.

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

Hope you have help getting it on 3ph.:cool2:

 

[TexasBoy]

That will cause damage if back into something..yikes.

Not anymore than any other implement I guess, mowers, disks and others stick much further back and will crunch something also. At least the end is radius'd smooth. Kinda like hammer forged steel battering ram.

 

[TexasBoy]

Hope you have help getting it on 3ph.:cool2:

Actually wasnt any trouble at all. I am going to weld something along the bottom on each side to keep it from rocking over when its on the ground.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I would think that is over 1000 pounds with the concrete. It should make an excellent counterweight.

 

[BeezFun]

Looks like some kind of antennae, you can beam in the mothership with that thing. I love it when I can use old junk to make something useful. The problem is for every 100 pieces of junk I save I only find a use for one.

 

[George2615]

Looks more like a rocket booster for those 1/4 mile runs.

 

[dusty3030]

If you don't paint it up like a JATO bottle we need you to turn in your man card.

 

[dusty3030]

Another...

 

[LD1]

I think you may be under estimating the weight. Hard to tell looking at pics though, cause I dont have any dimensions.

IF it aint too much trouble, could you post dimensions of the main casting and we could give an accurate weight. All we need is the big diameter, diameter of the hole, and length.

Again, hard to tell with pics. But guess 18" diameter with an 8" hole and 24" long puts it nearly 1400#....

Nice counterweight for sure though. Not sure if I would waste the time filling with concrete. The amount of weight added in the grand scheme of things would be nil.

 

[Notforhire]

I like it! Neat, small package, that has a low center of gravity.

 

[TexasBoy]

IF it aint too much trouble, could you post dimensions of the main casting and we could give an accurate weight. All we need is the big diameter, diameter of the hole, and length.

These forgings are very rough in dimension, this was 1026 steel.

As I recall it is 21.5" in length. The hole averages 7" - And the outside was 14.5" - to 15" depending on where you measure.

The rule of thumb 'round the shop is 15" diameter round/solid stock is 50# per inch of length.

That little end cap we guessed about 200#, but that was just a hip-shot guess.

It definitely is a heavy lil chunk and you know you have something behind you with it hooked up. My Dodge 2500 Cummins 4x4 rode like a Cadillac on the way back from the machine shop with that in the bed. Im going to pick up a pallet with 16 bags of Sacrete next week (building some new barb wire fence right now) and I will see how the tractor behaves picking up that load with this weight on back.

How much counter weight are other folks using? Ive seen the cool pictures of the barrel full of concrete, I wonder what that setup actually weighs? If this proves to be too much I can cut that end-cap back off and just put a flat plate on there.

If this thing works out, I will blast it and paint it to resemble a bomb with requiste lettering and symbols.

 

[k0ua]

A barrel full of concrete is somewhere around 1050 to 1100 lbs.

 

[LD1]

21.5" long and 15" diameter =3797 cubic inches

7" hole, 21.5" long = 826 cubic inches

3797-826=2971 total cubic inches

2971/1728=1.72 cubic feet

steel is roughly 495# per cubic foot

1.72 x 495 = 850# just for the large piece.

So you have about 1050# of steel with your hipshot guess of the end cap. Add maybe 50# for the framework. So thats a nice 1100# weight:thumbsup:

If that is 3" tubing running through there, it occupies 193 cubic inches of space.

826-193 = 633 left for concrete. 633/1728 = 1/3 of a cubic foot. Or less than 1 60# bag.

I just dont think adding another 50# of concrete is worthwhile.

 

[TexasBoy]

I just dont think adding another 50# of concrete is worthwhile.

Wow, thats some high-level cypherin' !

Thanks for doing that. :thumbsup: