Reintroduction and project thread

[deereman75]

Morning everyone. Doubtful anyone actually remembers me after disappearing for the better part of a decade....
Long story short I'm off living on an acreage and running a machine shop in Canola farming country now.
Not really doing any social media anymore so I figured I'd come back here. Starting this thread for some of the more interesting projects I come across. All in one place so it's easier to follow if someone is interested, and easier to ignore for everyone else.
Hope everyone is doing well with this mess of a year we've been having

 

[deereman75]

Starting off with a job that came in recently. I rebuild these cylinders off large air drills for one of the local equipment dealers. Mostly lathe work these.

 

[deezler]

Welcome (back). How do those cylinders get bent so hard?

 

[deereman75]

Welcome (back). How do those cylinders get bent so hard?

It's bad design or user error depending on point of view. On these specific air drills if you leave it in transport mode with the wings down, going over a bump on one side makes the other wing over center and it bends both cylinders on that wing at the same time.
5.5" bore 36" stroke cylinders with 2" rods, so to bend a pair of them is a fair bit of force....

 

[ovrszd]

I've got two cylinders I've bent thru stupidity. Can I straighten the rams in my press with any chance of success??

 

[deereman75]

Not to say it's impossible, but I've never seen it done successfully. The issue is if it isn't absolutely perfect you can ruin the gland and the tube. It will cycle until it galls the inside of the gland, the piston, and the bore of the tube. And at that point you're basically at throw it out or spend more than it's worth to fix. And you also run the risk of the shredded off bits of steel running through your hydraulic system and causing all sorts of other expensive damage.

Very small cylinders (the sort available for $200 or so from the various sellers of chinese hydraulic components) usually arent worth fixing. For large or expensive ones the rods are typically replaced. My shop buys 24' lengths of SuperChrome shafting, cuts to length, and then lathe threads or welds on ends as needed.

I've got two cylinders I've bent thru stupidity. Can I straighten the rams in my press with any chance of success??

 

[deereman75]

Another recent one. A bit of reverse engineering on what used to be a shaft coupler on a disc that was no longer available. Started as a length of 5" round 1045. These jobs are where having a nice heavy lathe pays off.

 

[ovrszd]

The right tools and the knowledge to use them!!! Nice work!!!

 

[wdchyd]

Niiice Deereman, Glad to see another hyd shop owner on here. I do the same type of work. Used to buy a lot from Savik too but fees across the border and stinking freight carriers were enough to drive a person to drink.
Although we do mostly cyl work we are installing a 100hp test bench in our shop for pump and motor work.
What size lathes do you use?

 

[deereman75]

I really like that savik shafting...

I've got a whole mix of machines here, I do a lot of general machining and heavy equipment work in addition to hydraulics. Shafts and caterpillar parts mainly.
My big lathe is a 22x96 gap bed. I've got a beater 17x60 Voëst for spray welding, and a small standard modern for smaller parts.
Then milling machine, bandsaws, small cylindrical and large surface grinder, ect

Currently catching up on a few projects for myself before going back to paying work. Finished a new welding table out of a 40" lathe faceplate, and I've got a 90 ton press I'm just about finished rebuilding.

Niiice Deereman, Glad to see another hyd shop owner on here. I do the same type of work. Used to buy a lot from Savik too but fees across the border and stinking freight carriers were enough to drive a person to drink.
Although we do mostly cyl work we are installing a 100hp test bench in our shop for pump and motor work.
What size lathes do you use?

 

[wdchyd]

Savik is good stuff, I’m thinking about 15 yrs or so ago they had a big strike. They wouldn’t ship anything for 3 weeks, I was forced to buy elsewhere and I found a supplier that delivers on their trucks. I may have a few old orange packages of IHC still in my stock rack.
IIRC Savik in Trois Rivers is about dead north of us. I was buying from them in the early 80’s.

 

[deereman75]

I have a stock rack full of the orange tubes of non IH chromed 1045 for ag cylinders. I am convinced it threads nicer than the other stuff I've used....

 

[deereman75]

Another recent PITA.... Bearing went in the apron gearbox. Better part of a day to tear it apart and fix. This winter when it slows down enough I want to pull the entire headstock off and fix an oil leak.

 

[GSVette]

Another recent one. A bit of reverse engineering on what used to be a shaft coupler on a disc that was no longer available. Started as a length of 5" round 1045. These jobs are where having a nice heavy lathe pays off. View attachment 674460View attachment 674461View attachment 674462

That’s the big brother of a job I’m contemplating right now-I’ve a Deere model 31 hydraulic auger that some dipstick welded the a 9” auger to the coupler-can’t find a new, used or reproduction coupler for the auger drive anywhere so I may have to make it. It will certainly tax my nearly non-existent machining skills but I’ll certainly learn something.

How did you reverse engineer the damaged coupling? Just eyeball and experience? Or did you have some drawings/plans for the original design?

 

[deereman75]

Basically I was given those parts and a napkin sketch with some rough dimensions of what it needs to attach to. Just one of those things you sort of figure out how to do after doing it enough times.

Do you have a picture of what you're dealing with? I've had to do a few emergency butchery repairs in fertilizer augers for one of my customers before. One of them we were able to weld on a small U joint off the shelf from a parts store in place of the original coupler.

That’s the big brother of a job I’m contemplating right now-I’ve a Deere model 31 hydraulic auger that some dipstick welded the a 9” auger to the coupler-can’t find a new, used or reproduction coupler for the auger drive anywhere so I may have to make it. It will certainly tax my nearly non-existent machining skills but I’ll certainly learn something.

How did you reverse engineer the damaged coupling? Just eyeball and experience? Or did you have some drawings/plans for the original design?

 

[GSVette]

Appreciate your insights-I’ll get you a couple of photos when I get over to my shop this weekend-maybe you’ll have some ideas as to other ways to get back the ability to switch augers. 9” is good enough for most everything I have in mind but I’d like to be able to swap out the auger when I want/need to.

One additional detail-I’m just getting started on understanding this project-I have plans to remove the hydraulic motor from the 3 point boom assembly so that I can disassemble the coupler from the shaft and see just what they really did.

This is one of my winter projects-I hope to be able to fabricate whatever I need using my recently acquired vertical mill- it probably isn’t ideal for making a replacement coupling ( should that be what I need to do) but I’ll just have to figure out how to make it work.

 

[deereman75]

Here's my new welding table. Been using it for a bit now and I'm incredibly happy with it. Frame is 2x4x0.125 tubing, and the top is a spare lathe faceplate I had.

 

[wdchyd]

That’s a great idea, luv the slots for bolt up fixtures

 

[deereman75]

I had wanted an acorn platten for years but never found one.... Had this spare 40" faceplate and finally decided to just make something.

It's really been nice having the slots, also being cast all the spatter and such doesn't stick

 

[deereman75]

Couple recent things.

First one is a product I highly recommend. Norton blaze rapid strip wheels. Absolutely magic at removing paint, rust, and mill scale. Next up is a pump housing at the start of being rebuilt.