Would this work?

[SoCal Dave]

I want to add about one inch to the ends of these pins.  They are for an arena rake dragged behind a tractor.  They have worn off an inch or more and there are 21 of them.  I will be using my Lincoln  220 AC welder.  I want to add back the worn portion.  I was told that I could add a sleeve like the pvc pipe and that it would keep the weld inside the tube and not stick to the weld.  It was told to me that a ceramic tube was used, but I thought they a pvc pipe might work???????  It seems like it would make a neat little guide for the rod.  I haven't tried this but I thought the pvc might melt.  Some kind of ceramic tube should work better but I can't find any like the pvc at the hardware stores.   

 

Second question:  I have 6011 and 6013 rod and Stoody 35 hardfacing rod.  If I have a 1/2" or less, I was thinking about just using the hardfacing rod.  Two passes should equal 1/2 inch.  But, if I have more, would it be best to use one of my other rods first and finish it with the Stoody 35?????

 

[DSW]

PVC most certainly will not work. And I'm sure if you just stop and think for a moment you'll spot the reason why. I could certainly see ceramic working since they use ceramic strips to back up welds. I've also seen build up done on bolts broken down inside say blocks using stick. It's easiest when the materials are dissimilar like when you are building up a steel bolt in an alum block. I've also seen carbon used to "blank off" areas doing weld build up like with keyways.

 

Some stick rods the flux will naturally move to the outside and help keep the new weld material from sticking to the surrounding areas when doing bolt extraction. I'm not sure how well that will work though with something this large. Problem may be that you will have slag inclusions around the outside edges where the slag hardens up before the weld pushes the slag up the column. Since we are talking wear items anyways, why remove your "shell" Can you get away sleveing it with simple steel pipe and just leaving it on? You would decrease the distance between the pins and I'm not sure if that would matter in your case or not. The outer metal would wear "faster", but the center core that is hard would still slow the wear down to the rate the inner core wore. You still may have issues with slag inclusions though, so your core may not be fully welded. You may even find that you can simply slit the steel sleeve in a few places and knock it off with a chisel if the slag runs to the outside and you don't weld the sleeve to the core. You might be able to solve some of the slag inclusion issues by welding out of position, but I'm not sure if the Stoody rod you are choosing is an all position rod or not. I'm mostly thinking if you have a fair amount of buildup to do, say more than 1/2".

 

 

I've played very little with carbon. My 2nd thought would be to drill a chunk of carbon or a dissimilar metal like alum and use that for your form. I'm not sure if you'll be able to remove it though without damaging the form though. I could possibly see you driving the pin out of a piece of alum, but carbon might be too brittle.

[jmccustomknives]

Honestly, go ahead and replace them.  The proper way would be to use a build up rod but they've been worn past that point.

[Glenn]

Consider welding a solid section of new material to the end. V it out real good and get full penetration. Then cut to length. To make things easy, weld the two pieces of material together in a piece of angle iron so it stays in alignment.

[SoCal Dave]

If I just build up the ends with rod without using a tube, what rod would be better?  6011 or 6013.  I'm thinking of running a pass, cleaning it, run another pass on top, cleaning it and then a two hardfacing rod passes.  Other rods may be better, but I have lots of 6011 and 6013 I want to use.   

[DSW]

Either or as far as buildup. Both will give you roughly the same material hardness for the weld itself. The question would really be which rod you ran best. Neither would be my 1st choice ( or even 2nd or 3rd) for buildup. 6013 lays down a bit easier, but with such short welds, it won't matter much.

 

Keep in mind that if the original material is hard, a lot of build up can cause issues with the original material due to the heat. I've seen guys try to weld up the abrasion resistant  corner protectors for plows to try and increase the life of the pieces, only to have the pieces snap because they became too brittle and broke rather than wore after the "repair". In effect they shortened the life of the pieces rather than extend it because the piece was now totally useless where it was just badly worn before.

[SoCal Dave]

What would be a better AC rod for this job?

[DSW]

As mentioned above this may not really be worth the time and effort over simply replacing them. Having said that, I can understand why sometimes guys do things when time and effort are "cheaper" than simply replacing parts. Just understand that even after doing all this work, they still might not work, as I mentioned with the plow ears above.

 

 

AC sort of limits you a bit with build up rods. 7018 is usually a very good choice, but not all Ac machines run 7018 well, even 7018AC rods. It can be tough to determine if 7018 runs well without trying some. Even then some rods by one manufacturer may run well and others may not, even different types by the same company  may not run the same on a given machine. 7024 used to be a preferred rod for doing buildup. It's a high iron powder rod that lays down lots of material at one time. It runs really well on AC and is almost an "idiot" rod. If you have your travel speed and amps right and keep the heavy flux coating in contact with the plate, it's almost impossible to make lousy welds. Down side is it's very runny with heavy flux, and is only for welds in the flat or horizontal fillet positions. They also aren't as easy to locate as they once were, especially in smaller quantities. 7024 used to be big welding bridges and other places like ships where lots of material needed to be laid down in a hurry. Since the invention of low hydrogen rods it's fallen out of favor with engineers, mostly because there is so much data on Lo-Hy rods like 7018 that it's easy to simply copy paste for 7108. 7014 is a similar rod but with a bit less iron powder in the flux. That makes it an all position rod. It's still easy to use on AC and is one of my preferred rods for teaching new guys to weld. 7014 is readily available in many sizes and quantities. I think I have 1/16", 3/32" 1/8" and even 5/16" 7014 at the house that I've bought in quantities as small as 1 lb boxes or in 5lb, 10lb or 50lb ones if needed.

 

Having said all of that, with such a small area of build up, I'm not sure rod choice will make a huge difference. I'm more used to doing build up on bigger areas like buckets and so on vs tiny pins. Heck we don't even bother hard facing teeth. They simply get swapped out when they get too worn. It's not worth the effort and expense in time. I can buy plenty of teeth for what it costs for an hour of labor, not to mention materials and not have to worry about brittleness and so on. Hardfacing usually pays when you do it BEFORE things get too worn. Most times by the time the average person starts to think about hardfacing, it's really too late and the damage has already been done.

 

If you have plenty of 6013 on hand or even 6011 and want to use it, go ahead. I wouldn't buy a bunch of specific rods just for this. If you want to get a small quantity of hardfacing rods and "play", go right ahead. Just remember you may just be dumping money and time down the drain and end up replacing the pins anyways if they snap. My only issue with 6013 is that some guys tend to have issues with slag inclusion when running 6013 for some reason. 6011 also has it's issues. It's moderately aggressive even though it's a fast freeze rod and because it's deep penetrating, some guys have trouble welding with it. It does tend to tolerate crud on not so clean parts better than 6013 does.

[SoCal Dave]

DSW  Thanks for all the information you went over.  My homeowner association had purchased 10 lbs of the Stoody 35 hardfacing rod for me and I have used about half of them.  So, I will try both 6011 and 6013 which I have also.  When the pins were new, I hardfaced the bottoms and had hoped the tractor guy would let me know when they needed attention.  That didn't work so well and now I need to build the pins back up if possible.  I do the welding as part of my contribution to the community.  It does become almost easier to just purchase new pins as you had mentioned, but, part of me is a little old school and you just repair and repair it until you can't repair it any longer, and then purchase new ones.  Plus, for me, it's a welding opportunity.  Thanks again for you time and comments.    

[DSW]

These are used to drag an arena or field IIRC. Is all the wear just on the end, or are you seeing signs of wear on the front face as well? I ask because if these are dragging thru the dirt, I wonder where all the wear is. I know sand is one of the most abrasive materials I've dug in. I remember one job we did in New Jersey where we needed to use out 24" bucket. We almost never used that bucket and it would often fill with leaves and water and rust very heavily. By lunch time digging in sand, it looks like the bucket had been polished and there was almost no rust left on any surface that came in contact with the sand. I've seen similar results on ball field equipment used on the infield. By the end of the day I could see my reflection in the floor of the bucket it was so shiny.

 

 

I'm just thinking next time facing the front of the pins as well may help with wear possibly. I'm not sure if these are like the "teeth" on our box scraper and always face in one direction, or if they can spin and wear on all sides.

[SoCal Dave]

DSW:  The pins can spin but I've noticed that if they get stuck, they wear unevenly.  The most they have worn off is about one inch.  I could just hardface the bottom of the pins again, and that lasted for 8 months.  But, I wanted to try something new welding wise and that's when I thought about building up the pins with 6011 or 6013.  Most of the arena's are sand and some DG, but I'm not sure of the amount.  I 'm not on the arena's committee.  I leave that to the horse people since they have different types of arena's which require different types of footing. Thanks again!

[Frosty]

While I wouldn't spend time and money on this project unless I didn't have an alternative I do have a couple thoughts. A sleeve to act as a mold would save a BUNCH of time. Will tig torch cups fit? There are different sizes but I've been away from tig work so long I wouldn't guess. I don't know if one would take the thermal shock but I'd give it a shot were it me.

 

If I had to just weld them up I'd get so sick of doing button welds I'd probably have to kill something. Weld a button on the end till it started to flow over the edge and stop, do another while it cooled, probably have a bunch in the vise. Chip when cool and repeat.

 

Billing the job would take care of having to actually do it.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Crazy Ivan]

I think the easiest way to build up an inch would be to get some bar stock,about 3/16" smaller in diameter then the pins, cut them about 7/8" long, bevel the end  fully to get a good weld joint, clamp in place using angle iron to make it line up with the existing piece, weld up the beveled joint to make them one solid piece, then (since the material is 3/16" smaller in dia) use hard facing rod to build up the outside of the material to size including the end (hence why I suggest leaving it 7/8" because the last 1/8 or so will be done with hard facing rod). I don't know if this would be too time consuming for this specific job, but thats my 2 cents.

-Crazy Ivan

[HWooldridge]

The other previous comments are valid and all I would add is - do not use PVC under any circumstances.  Not only is it not suitable from a thermal deflection perspective, but it will deteriorate with the heat and emit chlorine gas (the same stuff they fired into the trenches during WWI).

[mmtrainee]

You now know that YOU are the one who needs to keep track of the wear on the teeth, so inspect frequently. If it was me, I would get replacements, then repair the existing. That way you will always have a replacement set. Building up is time consuming. You will not be pressured in completing repairs. 

 

Years ago, I worked at a place that manufactured farm equipment. We had one model of harrow which had teeth similar, except they were welded directly onto the frame. When the teeth had worn down, farmers would bring the complete unit back in, new original teeth were welded next  to the old teeth.

 

I suggest doing something similar. Purchase same diameter as original, cut to original length (maybe even a little longer), weld it to the original, I would use 7024, then hardface. 

 

Keep in mind that 6011 is a deep penetrating rod. 6013 is not as deep, in my mind, I think of it as a sheet metal rod. My rod of choice would be 7018 for the buildup. 7018 is medium penetration, iron powder.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Adding a piece would be how I would go about this project.

[Sweany]

Cut an 2" off the exsisting pin .

Weld 3" of 4140 or 4340 the correct diameter. do a full penetration weld, on the shaft. use angle iron to help keep it straight.  It is easier to keep everything straight with 3" of steel than the 1" addition

 

This procedure does several things, your weld is not in the high wear area and is way easier than building up an inch of an the end.

 The second thing is if you weld the pin with 7018 ( proper rod for 4140) you may harden the end of the rod.

 

my .02

[SoCal Dave]

I 'm trying to this job with existing materials and on the cheap.   I don't have any spare 1" rod of 4140 or 4340.  If the rods ever get worn more than 2 inches I will definitely do as Sweany and others have mentioned.  I will let you guys know how the test pieces come out.  Thanks

[Backwoods Blacksmith]

Cutting the rod short and adding 2 to 3 inches would be the way to go.  Think about using coil spring instead of an alloy. Use 6011 rod.  I don't think hard face is the way to go. Extra work for little result.  The spring is pretty tough.  You may want to preheat a little for stress relief.  Weld one up, let it cool and see if the weld breaks away from the spring.  if it does, then stress relief.

[SoCal Dave]

I ran some tests today.  First, I needed to build the pins up about 1/2" to one inch.  I started with the 6011 rod that I had on hand.  Clearly, this rod didn't build up enough material to help.  I used one entire rod with little gain.  On top of the 6011 rod, I ran two passes with the Stoody 35 hardfacing rod.  This did add enough material.  The second test I ran just the Stoody hardfacing rod.  I needed to make up about 1/2".  I was able to build up enough with just the Stoody rod to get me my 1/2". I  ran more than two passes but it's not like a normal pass.  It's around the circle and end up in the middle.  To me the hardfacing rod is designed to add material.  That's what you want it to do.  My understanding is that it is a two pass rod.  I used my Lincoln AC220 welder set at 150.  This was the setting I used on all the  welding for this project. I will post a picture later.  The pins seem to be a tough material.  I haven't found any coil springs 1" diameter to use as suggested.  Even if they make them, they would be hard to come by around here.  If I did cut off some rod and weld another section on, I would hardface that also.  Anything more than 1/2" might be problematic.  The arena people and the tractor guy all tell me that I don't need to bring the pins back to the original length.  I just thought I might try but I don't think an 1 1/2" build up of hardfacing rod is what the rod was designed for. 1/2" seems reasonable.  So, I will live with all the pins one inch shorter than the original length.  Having all of the pins the same length is desirable and I will monitor their ware better. This is an example of doing something/running a few test pieces and in the process you find your solution/answer.       

[Robert Yates]

A copper sleeve will work for a collar and provide you with the ability to build up and remove the collar when done . hard surface can be done with two passes . 

 

Good Luck

 

Sam 

[arftist]

Stoody 35 can be done with two passes, in general though, 1 pass of hardfacing is preferable, and more than two passes is likely to fail. 

 

As mentioned, 6013 is a new sheet metal fabricating rod, and has no place whatsoever repairing farm equipment. 6011 (1109 for real farmers)

is a rusty metal repair rod with deep penetration, fast freeze and low build up. 

 

Save your super expensive stoody rods for something they were made for. Coil springs certainly are made in 1" diameter and ARE available, you just have to know where to look, but no, you can't weld them on to your digger teeth with 6011. You need 7018 AC (since you have an AC machine),

and, you should preheat both parts and preferably post heat as well.