Had a little blow out today. I suspected it was coming. Saw an add about 2 weeks ago for a DHT and it had a noticeable hump in the wedge rails. I’ve noticed under great pressure mine moves a little. Was hoping to get a little more splitting done before investigating. Well today she popped. Just a heads up for you folks using these internal fixed gib splitters. It happens. Slight crack along the other side also. The welds didn’t fuse into both plates very well at all. Time to get the welder out. I’m contemplating welding more plates to the bottom wedge plate and make it a full wrap around gib style. The plate on my wedges bends up pretty good too. Just not strong enough for what I’m doing I guess.
Robotic assembly line welding strikes again. Not enough penetration. either too low on amperage or too fast across material- combination of each. yep QC. Have you contacted DHT ? ( not that there might be any warranty but ya never know)
A little of both but mostly quality control. Probably a robotic mig weld on that joint. You know what they say about mig welding, produces a very pretty bead that holds nothing. LOL You can tell by the muddy dirty joint it’s either been broke for awhile or never really attached at all except for the shiny parts. One side of the joint is clean from shear. Means the weld never bonded. No luck on the warranty. 3 years in. I replaced at least half of this splitter the first year under warranty. Free parts I do the labor. No one will work on it for DHT. The engine runs good that’s a plus. Everything else is cheap overseas garbage.
That sucks! Everything from the box stores is junk. Same name on the package but made cheaper for the retailer. It would be nice to buy something built to last not to cheapest way to get it done.
These are built, if you're looking for a real good splitter, these are worth the green you'll pay. Horizontal & Vertical
Not good... Sounds like you can weld it up better than new. Even out of warranty, you may get them to cover something? How many splitters now use an I beam versus a welded up beam? Lots of the older ones had I beams, although I guess it's not the beam itself that failed, but it's all welded the same.
It is a full I beam. These pieces are welded to the full beam. Obviously just not good enough welds. These internal gib designs are not my favorite idea. There’s a little extra slop engineered into them. Might not seem terrible but once forces start pushing in directions anywhere but straight ahead things start breaking. The more slop the more twist the more forces generated sideways or up and down. I had built a four way wedge for it. The OE was poorly designed and fell apart. Realized after using it for a bit I would need to raise the ram higher in the back for it to work right. Took it off instead. May redo that back of ram height while I’m at it. I’ll see. Is gonna be ugly but it’s gonna be strong when I’m done with it.
When these first came out, someone from DHT started a thread on arboristsite. I made a comment on the welds then. I was blown off. Done correctly GMAW (mig) is as strong as any other process, but it is easy to make a pretty weld with little penetration.
Welded it up this morning. Sorry didn’t take any pics. After looking at it again my idea of making the gib fully wraparound was out. The tabs that hold the guards are welded over on top the small angle iron. Totally in the way for my idea. Possible but would be a heck of a job to cut those two sections apart. I settled for just rewelding the angle to the ibeam. Some C and bar clamps to bring it all together and zapped it up with 6011. I’ll,save any dreams of further modification for another day. Got a lot of work for it to do now.
Yep there’s no reason auto welding cannot be strong. It’s just an improper setup that foils the job. Gotta say the bead was some pretty hard weld. I gave up trying to grind it all off. Easier to turn up the amps a bit and melt it all back together I’m just a beginner with a buzz box one year old. Big fan of 7018 for helping a hack make halfway decent welds. Bought some 6011 for it’s fast freeze and rough fit capabilities. As promised it’s ugly but it’ll hold now.
I do as much as I can with the mig and I only have 6010, 8010 and 7018 in the garage. No reason 6011 has to look bad, use a whip and pause and it will look ok. It does take more practice than 7018. The DC only variants are a bit cleaner than the AC rods. The only time my arc welder comes off DC is if I am getting some arc blow, which is seldom.
Truth be told there’s a few inches of that bead that looked really nice it wasnt all hacked. Sort of a tough place to weld with a long stick. An inside butt joint. Just can’t get any angle on it until the stick burns down. Could have used some Banana sticks Taking into account I left the old gusset weld on and had about an 1/8” gap in most of the length I’d say it came out pretty good. Had every clamp I own on it and that gap refused to disappear. And I didn’t really care. This splitter and I are not on the friendliest of terms. LOL This particular joint can only be welded from one side. The inside is a channel that the wedge plate rides in. I seriously considered attempting a light bead in there for strength but that could cause lots more problems than it’s worth. Not sure I’ve ever heard of 8010. I’ll have to look that up.
I had to weld some stuff that the WPS called for 8010 3G down for the root and 7018 for the cover pass, so that is what I used. 6010 is 60,000 psi tensile strength and 8010 is 80,000 psi. Seeing as though mild steel is 36,000 psi it really isn't needed for A36. Both are DC rods only. Banana sticks are worth their weight in gold as you cannot get a good weld otherwise, bend them if you got them. If I only had an Ac box my goto rods would be 6011 and 6013 I like 6013 better than 7018AC. It's funny that in the U.S. 6013 is frowned upon for anything structural or pipe but overseas it is a very common rod to use for those jobs?
Much better penetration and cleaning also. Plenty of tensile strength for mild steel. I have a 35T also. Got worried when I saw this thread and went out and checked. No sign of problems thank heavens!
Miller Bobcat gas powered DC all the way! 6013, 6011, & 7018 are the go too rods. 1/16 6013 does a nice job on exhaust pipe & it doesn't have to be perfectly shiny to weld.
