Straightening Skid Shoe bracket with heat?

[Threepoint]

Update: Success! :dance1: I was able to pull the bracket back into its original shape without heat today. Ended up using a 4' high-lift jack, some 3/8" chain and some scrap wood to protect the moldboard surface. Pics below. It took some trial and error with wooden timbers to get the jack, chain and blade positioned just right so the force was directed correctly and the jack wouldn't kick out. But this method allowed me to use the blade itself to absorb the tremendous counter pressure, rather than pulling directly against the 3pt hitch as I would with a come-along. For additional leverage, I used a 7' section of 2" Sch. 40 PVC electrical conduit slid over the jack handle and I stood on a stepladder while my wife stabilized it. I'm thinking Rube Goldberg might have approved. :laughing: Still took nearly all my strength to bend that bracket back. Next project is to remove both brackets and weld in some heavy gussets between the post sleeves and the back of the brackets. Thanks again, everyone, for the input.

 

[Arc weld]

Good job! I've had to straighten a few things in my day. I think all you need for gussets are some pieces of flat bat bar or plate on the sides of the brackets to make it kind of like a C channel shape to box in the original L shape.

 

[Xfaxman]

Looks good. :thumbsup:

I will have to add my Hi-Lift jack to my list of metal benders.

 

[Gordon Gould]

:thumbsup: - Thanks for the report. I think Rube would be proud. He is a backyard mechanics friend. Success is good.

 

[Shield Arc]

I would cut out two gussets for each bracket, something like this.

 

[dragoneggs]

I would cut out two gussets for each bracket, something like this.

Beefy and will definitely do the job! Stiffeners like that are so effective. Only way those will fail is to buckle.

 

[tawilson]

I still would leave it as is. Better that bent than something else. You'll fix it a lot faster next time..

 

[dragoneggs]

I still would leave it as is. Better that bent than something else. You'll fix it a lot faster next time..

Good point... sometimes over stiffening a 'sacrificial' part will cause the damage to occur on a more critical or expensive part. Often in my business we design/size things such that we control where the failure will occur for safety/maintenance reasons.

 

[Threepoint]

Arc and Shield, I hadn't thought about putting a bracket on each side of the post sleeve. (Shield, great graphical illustration, BTW). Would you tack the gussets to the post sleeve as well as the bearing surfaces of the bracket? I had been thinking that a single gusset from 3/8" plate, centered on the vertical axis of the post sleeve and welded to both the sleeve and bracket surfaces would provide the most support. It theoretically would extend the bracing farther down the sleeve, since it was the post and sleeve as a unit that served as the lever arm (moment arm) to bend the bracket in the first place. :scratchchin:

Tawilson and DE make a good point about sacrificial parts. Maybe that's why Woods doesn't add gussets in the design. The skid shoes and the HBL84-2 blade itself are otherwise very beefy. Guess I'll have to think about that a bit more. Still, when I bumped into the frozen timber I was barely creeping, pushing snow with the back of the blade while clearing in a tight place. I get that F = M x A, and my tractor as set up is over 6K lbs, but I would have thought the blade and 3pt hitch should withstand that much of a bump without damage.

 

[Shield Arc]

Threepoint you have a good idea too, of just using a single gusset. Something like this I don't like to weld all the way around. Oh I would if an engineer told me to! I would use three short welds. One on each end of the gusset, and one in the heel of the gusset. I like to run a bead of caulking between the welds before painting. Helps keep the water out, so things don't rust as fast.

I wouldn't be afraid of using gussets on this. The rotating catch pin is what is going to take the hit now. As with anything you have to be careful.