Wood Splitter Build - "The Don"

Correct, just a flow channel to get maximum residence time in the tank. More of a concern for continuous flow systems like for trunion lube. But still good practice for hydraulic cylinders.

 

I'll bet it makes you smile everytime you walk by!

That is very true that not much farm stuff gets primer. We have Sunflower/AGCO, Landoll, Hesston, Bradford Built, Titan Trailers, Catterpillar Work Tools (bucket, blade, attachment division of Cat), Hutchinson Maywrath, all within a 100 mile radius of us. Cat does some blasting but nobody else and nobody primes anything really. The one thing they do have is two part paint with a hardender.

If my HFT sandblaster holds up I'll probably blast the whole thing and go straight to two part paint.

 

Yeah Andy, being a Buyer is an interesting job. I've been doing this for over 12 years at a few different manufacturing plants. There's always revisions, last minute additions that need long lead time unobtanium items and nobody wants to hear about not hitting delivery dates. It's fun working with engineering, suppliers, project managers, and everyone else. Lots of fires to put out.

I'll keep watching this thread. It's definitely interesting.

Tom

 

Man, that would exciting! In both good and bad ways. That's what I always try to tell my kids, that there are so many different types of jobs in manufacturing they could go into. It really is a team effort all the way around.

Reminds me of my best welder ever. Never before took a welding class but decided "it would be fun to try it." She was the captain of the cheerleading squad, looked like a barbie doll, and had personality and brains to boot. She could weld circles around me! I always told her she would be great in the front office helping run the place and not sweating it out on the line. She would both know what she was talking about and have some real life experience.

 

I'm sorry for all the posts. Between the ipad and photobucket I'm ready to scream!

Here is our shop. One of the best benefits of my job is having control of this playground. Almost all of our real goodies were donated by our local industry. It has made a huge difference in getting kids ready for the real world. It is not unusual to have kids come out of my program and make $20 plus an hour. A couple of my guys did 1 year of tech school for welding. One is working on a pipeline in Wyoming and made $85K last year. (He was very upset about the chunk the tax man took!) The other is pulling down $2800 a week doing plant and refinery turn arounds. They are both 19. I am so happy for them but it makes me wonder what the hell I'm still doing here making $32,000...

 

Here is the wear plate welded down. Under normal circumstances those welds should be wide enough to touch the top edge of the plate. These are smaller so that when the wear plate wears out I can grind them out easier to replace it.

 

Here is the anchor point for the cylinder all welded up. You may have caught my mistake. In the first picture I posted of this area I had the hole flipped. What an idiot! I think I just plain got caught up in the excitement and wanted to start welding. It was a good lesson for the kids because they saw that even I could get caught in a jam not paying attention to detail.

The piece at a 45* angle is just a brace for welding. I am laying my root pass with 8010 rod for maximum penetration, and then filling the rest out with 7018 for strength.

 

Here is the back side of the anchor point. I posted this to show the heat signature, or heat lines from the welding. They appear as the blue-gray fuzzy lines. This is a good indicator of strength showing that the heat from the weld has penetrated into the base metal, thus causing fusion.

 

The next two posts are the bad and the good. I wasn't pleased with how the welds appeared on the vertical left. This is a case of will hold and have strength, just be fugly. I didn't think it was fair to show only my good beads. I think my problem had a lot to do with both my settings on the welder and my electrode angle.

I set the welder pretty hot to get good fusion, but as you can see, I lost good control of the puddle. It is a real juggling act, and for a splitter I erred on the side of good fusion.

 

Another thing that has been a good learning process for me is finding the best combination of settings for what I'm doing. I have also been trying to push myself by only using one hand, welding left handed (I'm right) and welding out of position. The kids kinda put me up to it, but I'm glad they did as I am getting better and better at each.

This shot shows how the anchor point is inletted all the way into the beam. It was a lot of extra work that I hope will pay off in years of troublefree splitting.

 

Here is the anchor point boxed in with 3/8" plate and a root pass of 8010. I have been having some trouble keeping the beam straight and square. Nothing major, maybe a 1/8" at most. The heat seems to really bring it out which happens a lot with this thick of material and that many welds.

I did have an ah-ha moment today with why the beam is tweaked this way and that. I got it as scrap from a highway bridge project. Now they are doing the other side 3 years later. I passed by and saw them pile driving the same beams into the bedrock to support the bridge. Maybe the tweaking took place during that process?

 

I started out of HS working for a neighbors shop that basically made glorified log splitters for pallet disassembly and repair. I learned wiring, hydraulics, safety switches, painting, welding (tig and mig), use of metal cutting equipment like shear, brake, press, saws, lathe, mills, plasma cutter, etc.

These skills give me a lot more clout with the shop folk as I know what they are talking about. I know a lot more than most Buyers do that don't do manual work, and have never worked with their hands or tools beyond a computer.

I'm a hands on guy, and need to understand what I'm buying. I'm not content with simply buying something without knowing what it does, where it goes, etc.


That looks like a good start on the beam. Nice welds buddy!

 

Here is the Harbor Freight sandblaster. Overall, 3-4 stars. It works great when you get it dialed in just right. But, man do you have a time getting it to that point. It also really needs two people to get it running smoothly. One has to run the valves while the other sprays. It also gobbles a lot of air but that is no suprise for what it is. All said and done I'm glad I got it. I think I may use it to blast the entire splitter when I'm done.

 

Here is the abrasive. HFT wanted $40 a bag and I got this at Menards for $7.25.

 

This is the used abrasive I swept up. Still in good condition and with a little filtering I will use it again.

 

Here is the before on the axle

 

Here is the after. The abrasive was just right. It cleaned it easy and left a nice slightly rough surface for painting. The blasting place in town quoted me $100 and for $120 plus abrasive I bought the blaster to use again and again. And with all the old crusty stuff I deal with, it will be too soon

 

Any need for some eagle 7355? Probably not, more of a bucket tooth kind of thing. That and the hexavalent chromium is probably not something you want in your shop around kids.

 

Ooh man, I certainly could put it to good use. On the other hand, I don't really need it. It sure would make for an indestructable wedge! I put a lot of that stuff on our tanks, mine ploughs, and bulldozers in the Marine Corps. It sure does hold up to rough use.

As far as the hexavalent chromium or any other nasty stuff I do have them wear good respirators. We try to save the school money by repairing items around the district. We often find ourselves welding on galvanized, and the kids know the routine, grab respirator...weld outside.

One thing I wish I had some of that 7355 for is repairing anvils. If you have one that is beat up or corner chipped that would do it. There is better rod with more impact resistance as opposed to abrasion, but you don't want to know what it costs. I've been quoted as high as $20-$25 a pound!

I got the baffle system put in that you suggested. I'll have to get some more pics. I think it will work out great!

 

We use it for wear liner build up in our process gas fans. The wear plates a 1/2 on 1/2 chome carbide over lay. We weld in joints and fill in wear spots with 7355.