Is there a demand to have buckets hardfaced in your area? Do most operators do it themselves or go to a local welder? I'm curious because I'm currently trying to change jobs and I do a lot of metal fabrication for personal use. I had a friends dad who is a contractor suggest that for someone with welding skills it would be a good idea to start a business hardfacing excavator buckets. He seemed to think there was quite a demand and the startup expenses would be small. I'm just wondering if there would be enough of a demand for it. I doubt I'd be able to do any large buckets, however with all the mini excavators out there it seems like the smaller buckets would be fairly plentifull. I think it would be best if I could set it up where I get a bucket from them in the evening and am able to turn it around overnight and deliver in the morning. That way they are ready to go the next day with minimal down time. Then possibly start to expand into other areas, bucket repair or fabrication, thumbs, etc..... Any thoughts? Kevo
We call it Hard Coating and yes i do Loaders and i have done our Crusher's in the Plant...When you do Balanced Crushers it takes more time,what you do on half the set,you must do on the other....I think its a good idea to do in the seams of Haul truck beds also...As far as a job change,if the site has a Fabricator you probably outta luck...So no,not really a big Demand in our area...Most of the local guys that run their own equip. here know how to weld also,they just need the correct rod to Coat with...I.M.O. it might be some decent side money here n there... Good Luck to you...
Hi Ghettofab75, that is just one of the many hats I wear in my small buisness. There is not enough hardfacing alone to keep me busy but with all the other stuff I do I make a living. I just finished rebuilding the slide gate in a 613B Cat scraper and flipping all the cutting edges. And I reworked the air compressor due to oil leaking from seals. Also installed all new cutting edges on a 195 Fiat Allis and rebuilt the tilt cylinder. Now I'm starting on a L555 New Holland skid Steer full Service, new muffler and rework the skid plate. Just don't be afraid to wear more than one hat. And Good Luck in this adventure.:usa Oh I almost forgot if you already got your welder startup cost wont be to bad but if ya don't well the price of new ones is outta site.
Thanks for the info, thats kinda what I figured. Any big company would have its own maintanance personal and it would be all done in house. However, I was wondering more about the smaller contractors with only one or two pieces of equipment. They might do their own maintenance, but perhaps don't want to tackle the welding. Thanks, Kevo
I have 2 field mechanics and they both know how to weld. if you have mechanical skills that would be more of a push to get another job. My cousin is a small contractor hes got a Cat 320, Cat 302.5, D5 a Mustang skid steer, a Cat 420D IT, a Trojan 1500 Loader. He usually asks me to fix his stuff because he waits till the bucket has holes in it before hardfacing. Then he cries when it takes a while to do it. Theres good money in welding the only problem is getting paid. Some of the small guys don't have the money to fix stuff, but they still want to do it.
In SW Wisconsin, the majority of the biz is farming, lots of welding to do there. But there is a number of contractors as well and I know that from being in biz ourselves that we were really one of the only earth moving contractors in the area that did its own welding. We began rock crushing almost 60 years ago and got more into earth moving over the years. Alwyas had a need for a welder(both on the truck and in the shop). I know that in town there is ONE welding shop and Ron is always behind. He is a very good fabricator, doing anthing from your small stuff to frame cutting etc on semis to many custom projects. He has told me himself that another welding shop in town would be a welcome to him as well as most others. There is a small welding shop next town over that got involved with my neighbor(local concrete company) and they designed and built some of the first concrete reclaimer machines in the country. Now that is become a much bigger business for them. Start small and see what happens. In case anyone is interested in the reclaimers there website is www.enviro-port.com Trbo
http://www.equipmentworldmagazine.com/apps/news/articleeqw.asp?id=62156 Here is an article on Hardfacing.
We have a welder albeit not a great one ointhead infact one of our operators does a better job than our "welder" (our welder is also and operator:beatsme)but we hard surface (hahaha everyone has the own term for it) every ripper tooth, ripper shank, frost tooth, digging blade. You name it we hard surface it. We do it because of the abrasiveness of the sand we work in. So my suggestion to you if you are looking into this type of work advertise with companies that work in alot of sand. BTW not every big company has their own personnel.....each operator where I work fuels, greases, does daily maitenance and even alot of mechanical work on their own machine....I guess if you're looking you just need to figure out where to look. p.s.We harrass our boss all the time about spending the moula to get a better welder