Need some advice Folks, I no longer have my brother RonG around to pick his knowledgeable Brain What rod to use welding cast steal tiger teeth to the bucket shank? I now have a Takeuchi TB175 an am going to be digging in fractured ledge. I welder friend welded them on with 1/8 stainless rod. After about 20-mins 2 teeth are lose. I don't want to call him to let him know the welds broke (he is a friend and did it for free). Don't want to look like I'm ungrateful. Thank you, DaveG
Dave,grind out all that stainless weld.Heat it up and weld with 7018. Cool it slow.
Yep, RayF has it, 7018 is a good general purpose welding rod, 9010 or 100/11018 if you're welding big cast steel things that need to be extra tough. bigger stuff wants a pre-heat, welding and post heating followed by a long slow cool off, buried in dry sand or wrapped in blankets. As to the teeth, don't the pins hold them well enough or are the shanks all beat up?
Steel expands when hot, or it tries to expand. If it tries to expand, but can't as when it is only part of a bucket being heated it may not be able to expand freely. In that attempt to expand it is actually compressed. Then as it cools, it shrinks. This can build up massive tension in the formerly hot steel. The act f stretching is known as ductility A filler unwilling to stretch is not ductile. If molten filler cools to freeze, but doesn't give until it is solid, it'll likely break. 7018 is very ductile. I would use 7018, MIG 70, or TIG with ER70S2. Preheat to 300 degrees F. Preheat will get rid of moisture, and make shrinkage less a concern. Willie
Thank you for the replies. Did pre-heat for moisture but was a cool morning, about 38*. How do you do a slow cool down? Also it does have pins, they go in sideways but don't stay in well. They are new pins, they have rubber in the middle. I think the holes in the shank are wallowed out a bit. Sorry fast_st, just re-read and saw your slow cool comment. DaveG
yeah, sounds like your shanks are beat up, I ended up upgrading to new shanks and better teeth and everything is tight as can be.
Would be nice but, that would mean grinding/cutting off old shanks and welding on new. I just learned how to start the welder and strike an ark DaveG
The shape of the shank has worn. It no longer matches the inside of the tooth. Wallowing of the hole is minimal, but the motion of shank against tooth is causing rapid wear. You can build up the shank, but that job is overwhelming. Burn them off, and put on new. I have a bucket with a Hensley edge that came with shanks forged in place. When those shanks wore, I looked into a new Hensley edge. It was North of $500 for a 24" 5 tooth edge. I don't believe welding tooth to shank will work. Willie
Cutting off the old shanks and welding new on is not a trivial job for a novice welder, but with a cutting torch, angle head grinder and decent stick welder, you can get it done in about 2 hours a tooth. Getting the old shank off cleanly is the hardest part. I am a hobby welder and reworked a six tooth bucket with new shanks and teeth in a week with an hour here and an hour there. Plenty of tooth and shank vendors out there. Howard Howard
Well, I've tried it. We'll see how they hold up. DaveG
Doesn't look bad for a guy who just learned how to start the welder and strike an arc!! Mike
Changing teeth will be a job!
If they stay on.....
Thank you ol'stonebreaker. I went out and bought a Miller Trailblazer 325 EFI, I needed a Gen also. It's almost as easy as painting with a brush course I've been watching vid's on You-tube for a yr. This bucket is going to be for baling broken ledge. I have a frost tooth coming that will break it up, I've also got a 30" bucket coming for general baling/moving material. DaveG Oh, P.S. This is my NEW to me Mini-Hoe
Nice work Dave ! Had the same issue myself keeping teeth in place . Tooth weld mount gets a little wear on it so ya install the new tooth & pin and it's loose from the beginning . I bought new teeth for the excavator bucket . Parts guy says " hey don't you want the retaining pins with the teeth "? No , I'll glue them on with 7018's . Parts guy was dumfounded & replied " how will you change them in the future " ? Ahhh ...... Cut them off with a torch & weld another set on . Welding rods are still a very cost effective way to solve life's little issues . Ron would be proud of it:thumbsup One regret while changing a set of teeth is I get to thinking " could have went in to the dental field " . LOL !
Yair . . . Good one td25c I've been keeping my trap shut on this one but if you are set up with a good gas set and welder it's not much different time to knocking out those miserable sideways facing pins. If you weld the teeth onto new adaptors with no slop in the fit it takes bugger all to hold them. On the elevating and 627 scrapers that was the method of choice, we did away with the pins . . . we used to quite often have to blow the sides out of the tooth anyway to get a good hit at the pin. Folks are horrified when they see it but it always worked for me . . . crank up the Hobart and melt in a good weld across the top and an inch and half or so up the sides . . . maybe these days the steel is different? Cheers.
When tooth changing time comes, buy a scarfing/gouging tip for the torch and turn the oxy up to 40 psi. With some practice you can remove almost all of the weld from the shank. Mike
You can always use grade 5 bolts on the teeth too. Bolts start wearing, just replace them.
Good idea Welder Dave, never even gave that a thought. If I have more weld breaking issues that would be the less-expensive option. DaveG