The teeth on my bucket are a little thin and was wondering if anyone knew what they are made of. The bucket is a 5/8 yard on my antique Bantam. I was thinking of putting a little patch over the hole and welding it with 7018. Build up the patch area with 7018 then put one pass of hard face for the final pass. I doubt I can buy teeth so thought I would give it a shot. Any thoughts or suggestions?
Good evening orville , i have done this same thing to finish a project and keep the machine going since we was in no-mans land. I used AR450 plate and cut it about 1/2" wider than the teeth and welded with fluxcore. It worked fine , seemed to last better than the factory teeth that was still on it. 7018 will work fine , had a suitcase machine handy so it cut down the down time.
What is AR450 plate? Did you put any hard face on the AR450? My holes are not that big, the biggest hole is 1 3/4" X 1 5/8" but the bottom of the teeth are thin, down to 1/8" thick. I was hoping to just build them up and run some hard face. I have got 4 patches on, but miscalculated on the last tooth.
AR450 is a grade of abrasion resistance steel , its used a lot in high wear locations. There is different grades available , i use 450 and 500 , i dont use much harder than these because in rock , a harder grade will sometimes break or chip. With this i normally dont use any hardsurfacing rods. If you dont have access to this ,then putting a patch and building up with hardsurfacing will work as well.
I don't know how you made your teeth but I can see where cutting 4 pieces of steel per tooth or maybe just 2 would be an easier fix than what I am doing. I would bet the AR450 would be hard to saw or drill. When I get this done I will post a picture. I saw a couple of buckets on the excavator site that were hard faced to a point of over kill. Thanks Swamp Rat
When welding this AR450 do you use 7018? Do you need to preheat the steel before you weld it?
Working with AR steel is like any other except , drilling and cutting only makes it harder. This needs to be done with plasma, torch - i have done some drilling but you have to drill it at a snells pace , if it is cut too quick it will start heating and hardening. Welding can be done with 7018 , depending on thickness used , preheating can be done. Usually if a good hotpass is done and its cleaned and continous welding afterwards preheating not needed for your application. If the teeth you have now are not worn to the extreem - you can plate them with this metal and build them up so you will have no drilling .