Metamorphasis Welding Project

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dgoddard
Posts: 733
Joined: Fri Jul 07, 2006 10:29 pm
Location: Lebanon MO

Metamorphasis Welding Project

Post by dgoddard »

A recent project fell into my lap recently which was both machining and welding most of which was simple and will be obvious to anyone with a modicum of interest in these activities. But I recorded it photographically, so for your entertainment and comment I offer the following:
Bale_Spike.JPG
My neighbor was going to throw away this Bale Spike which fits on the bucked of a farm tractor front end loader. It appeared to have been home made and would have benefited from being made of something a bit better than hot rolled steel which was a bit low strength for the task of picking up large round hay bales. It had acquired a few bends along the way and had seriously damaged the bucket of the loader in that it bolted to the floor of the bucket which was never designed for the loads this device imposed while moving bales. The bucket floor was severely fatigue cracked. However the careful observer will note that this bale spike suffered severe damage of its own. Two pieces of angle iron had been welded to the square tube to hook under the lip of the bucket and these were severely bent. While milling them off of the assembly they proved to be very very soft as if they had been given a dead soft annealing. The bale spike incorporates two 1 inch round "side spikes in addition to the 2 inch main spike. One of these was broken off and the pme visible in the picture is severely deformed. My neighbor regarded the assembly as scrap, but thought I might be able to use the steel. I saw it a bit differently. I have only a small tractor (Ford 1510 22 HP) which would struggle to move such a large bale if it could even lift it. and I have only the 3 pt hitch for hydraulics. I also have no hay bales, but I did see a different potential.
Subsoiler.JPG
The metamorphosis was basically rather simple:
-- cut away the unnecessary bits (side spikes and angle irons),
-- turn the spike downward,
-- shorten the spike,
-- use the excess spike material to provide an angled foot to pull the implement into the ground and break hard pan,
-- add some 3point category 1 attachment points.

Simple to say, but there was the matter of the doing which required a few pounds of steel, some hitch pins and trying to make some welds which would do the job given my duffer level of welding technique.

The part that some might find interesting was the making and welding of the foot. Before I get into that, let me just say that if I was going to make one from scratch I would not use a hot rolled 2 inch diameter round bar for the vertical leg. It is just inefficient use of steel. A 1x4 piece of cold rolled would be way superior given the direction of the primary loading. But I was working with free stuff, and as I said my tractor is small. At 1900 lb draw bar pull (if the wheels don't slip) and 1160 lb hydraulic lift force, it is doubtful that my tractor can break the product I produced.

That being said, the real strength issue as I saw it was how to adequately attach the "foot" to the vertical bar, at the proper angle, and how to shape it.
Foot.jpg
For this I fell back on my weld design experience from my former employment in design of nuclear reactors and additioal study getting my PhD to teach engineering machine design. Given my low skill levels at laying down good welds, I may have over compensated but I think not too much, all things considered. I took the excess 2 inch bar and placed it in my milling machine vise with a 10 degree wedge under it. This allowed me to mill off a flat at 10 degrees to form the toe of the foot. This was subsequently hard faced with Armorwear hard facing wire.

After miling the toe off at 10 degrees I reversed the wedge and proceeded to mill a notch abut half way through the foot at 10 degrees to the axis of the bar. When welded to the end of the vertical leg, that was cut off square, it gave me a net 20 degree angle on the top of the toe so that the force of the soil would pull the subsoiler down into the ground, and should it get stuck on something the bottom of the foot would have a 10 degree slope to help lift it out by backing up.

But more about the weld prep In addition to making the notch, I used a 1/2 inch ball end mill to cut away additional material so that I could weld deeply in front and back of the vertical shaft, but I left a small lip at the bottom to help locate the parts. and a small grind was done at the sides to get additional weld depth there as well. A little work with an angle grinder took out the ridge between the ball end mill passes on the back side of the prep before the welding started.

On the tractor I had measured that the top link pivot was 12 3/4" above and 5" behind the lift arm pivots. This was measured by parking the tractor on a concrete slab and using
-- a plum bob,
-- carpenter's square,
-- tape measure and
-- some chalk.
I projected verticals from these pivots to the concrete below. I then replicated the 12 3/4" and 5" spacing on the subsoiler. This gave me a parallelogram linkage that would keep the vertical bar vertical as it went into the ground.

From the lift arm pins to the toe of the subsoiler measures 24 inches vertically, and the lift arms can raise to 28 inches at the pins, so the subsoiler will only clear level ground by 4 inches (be careful what you drive over). The lift arms will take the pins down to 8" above level ground giving me a subsoilng maximum depth of 16 inches.

Of course, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" So I tried it out on a garden area that had a hard pan. At full depth the subsoiler would penetrate the hard pan and cause the tractor wheels to slip. However just a few inches of lift with the hydraulics would break the hard pan and forward motion would resume. Curiously the track width of the tractor is about 4 feet but when I had to raise the subsoiler to break free, I would see the ground heaving up a foot beyond the track width of the tractor indicating I was lifting large chunks of hard pan. An occasional chunk would get pushed to the surface, and at first I mistook these for large rocks (larger than my head ) but they proved to be solid lumps of dirt that I could break only by picking them up and smashing them against something hard. By repeated passes, I could get the subsoiler to pass at full depth pretty uniformly.

I may add a hardfaced cutting edge to the front of the vertical bar If I find a need to as an aid to cutting roots that I might encounter. Although I was not under a tree, I did bring up a few roots from one that was 30 or so feet away.
I never met anybody that I couldn't learn something from.
redneckalbertan
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Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2012 10:39 am
Location: South Central Alberta

Re: Metamorphasis Welding Project

Post by redneckalbertan »

It looks good! I think you will have good success with it, I think the only thing I would have done differently would have been to extend the gusset that is on the main vertical member down to the foot. To give the foot some added strength to resist breaking your welds that hold it on.

You mentioned hardfacing the vertical member, unless you are breaking acres and acres of ground on a regular basis I don't think that this would be necessary. But that and a quick coat of paint would certainly make the machine look like it was professionally built.
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dgoddard
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Joined: Fri Jul 07, 2006 10:29 pm
Location: Lebanon MO

Re: Metamorphasis Welding Project

Post by dgoddard »

redneckalbertan wrote:You mentioned hardfacing the vertical member, unless you are breaking acres and acres of ground on a regular basis I don't think that this would be necessary.
What I was talking about there was to effectively extend the gusset a bit to form a leading edge "blade" and using hardfacing to give it a wear resistant cutting edge that I could sharpen. I have some areas to work that will have a lot of roots to cut and a sharp edge might speed the process by cutting the roots instead of lugging the tractor down trying to break them.

redneckalbertan wrote:.... a quick coat of paint would certainly make the machine look like it was professionally built.
I was thinking of getting myself a can of "Ford Tractor Blue" to pretty it up, but the bottom 16 inches will always be either rusty or polished up by use. But I will take the comment of the potential to look "professionally built" as a compliment.

Since it is going to wear off on that part you may wonder why I painted the foot and lower leg. That was just to experiment with how the paint handled. And it is attached to the hydraulic lift because all that steel is more than my 69 year old back ought to lift and it also facilitates turning it upside down in order to paint the bottom sides of the members.
Last edited by dgoddard on Wed Aug 27, 2014 8:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I never met anybody that I couldn't learn something from.
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dgoddard
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Joined: Fri Jul 07, 2006 10:29 pm
Location: Lebanon MO

Re: Metamorphasis Welding Project

Post by dgoddard »

redneckalbertan wrote:...... a quick coat of paint would certainly make the machine look like it was professionally built.
As it turns out you were quite right.
Painted.JPG
I took this picture while the paint was still tacky which is why the top link is not currently attached.

I got the paint from the local "Tractor Supply" chain store. It appears to be a very good match on color, and is one of the nicest brushing enamels I have ever used. It is high gloss and strongly self levelling so that brush marks disappear and it is not too bad about runs for a paint that goes on so thick thick and any runs or sags brush out easily. I may buy more of it for other projects, albeit all my projects may end up the color of tractors and farm implements. The paint is made by Yenkin Majestic and sold under the brand name of Majic Tractor Truck and Implement Exterior Oil Base Enamel
I never met anybody that I couldn't learn something from.
redneckalbertan
Posts: 1274
Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2012 10:39 am
Location: South Central Alberta

Re: Metamorphasis Welding Project

Post by redneckalbertan »

dgoddard wrote:
redneckalbertan wrote:...... a quick coat of paint would certainly make the machine look like it was professionally built.
As it turns out you were quite right.
Even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn every once in a while. It does look good painted.
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