Bucket Wear Protection

[rshackleford]

very interesting. if you all keep posting your thoughts i will keep reading.

thanks!

 

[trukfan]

When you hard-faced the bucket that lost most of it in 3 days, how was it applied? Most types of hardsurfacing are meant to be used only as a cover pass , meaning you need to build up the area to be faced with an appropriate filler metal first. Once it's built up, then you lay down the hardfacing in one or two layers. If you do layer after layer after layer of hardsurfacing, your next layers will never fuse properly b/c you're always trying to weld on a successively harder layer of metal. And like someone said there is some art to it. Depending on the rod, in can be royal PITA to lay down a decent bead, especially if the rod is for flat or horizontal only, and you need to weld up or down a little.

Also there are a bunch of different hardface applications, from protection from continuous sliding/friction forces, to severe metal-to-metal or metal-to-stone abrasion. Matching the hardsurface to your typical operating conditons would be the first place I'd start, or like others have said, jump to AR plate.

When I worked for a company that built conveyors and mudhoppers for aggregate plants, all the hoppers, be it for concrete, gravel, sand, etc... got AR plate for wear protection. It welds decently with the right filler, but drills like a son of a gun if you gotta put any holes in it.

 

[rshackleford]

When you hard-faced the bucket that lost most of it in 3 days, how was it applied?

there was no build up. the bucket was for all purposes brand new. the areas wiped clean were horizontal single passes in the corners of the bucket and on the outsides of the side cutters. the other areas we hard surfaced are holding up pretty well, but not those two places.

on either the torn out bucket or the other bucket we did not do any build up with hard surface rod.

 

[95zIV]

I did some searching and here are some threads that are relevant.

www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=4429&highlight=hardfacing

www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=17281&highlight=bars

www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=12279&highlight=wear

www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=5631&highlight=hardface

 

[EarthwurmJurm]

hi, I'm no expert but imo that bucket is fixable though it looks like it needs beefing up htru the sidees and some armour (or chockyblocks as you call them) thru the heel of the bucket.

looks like operator abuse to me tbh.. too much prying on that side of the bucket..

however like I say I'm no expert and I was once wrong before..

 

[powerjoke]

My welder told me one day after a scraper gooseneck broke....If its metal i can fix it.

Most put the hardface on many many areas of the bucket that dosent wear, the way i look at it is, if your hardface is gone that is were it is needed the most.

Pj

 

[Jam]

Hardfacing has its uses but sacrifical steel is the way to go. We grow potatoes at home and have tried hardfacing on the ridger and destoner wearparts. It doesnt last more than a day or two on heavy wear areas. Weight gain can be an issue on buckets but my own opinion would be weld it on and wear it off, hardfacing just isnt worth the time involved..

 

[Jam]

For any1 doing a bit of bucket repair work i found this mouth watering job on weldingweb, have a look and see what you think. Beautifull workmanship


http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?t=39022&highlight=excavator

 

[bobbarker]

Hope I'm not stepping on ant toes but using a general purpose bucket in conditions that are scrubbing off hardface is not ideal for the operator or the bucket. You also have to watch what type of metal you are working with as hardfacing is not reccomended for certain materials used in wear plates and teeth. I'd like to see more pictures of the bucket, heel and floor construction. You have an ec330? Maybe it has a Geith bucket? Take a look at some of their construction methods; wearplates the width of the bucket spaced for buildup all seams are more than 2x as thick as the common material buckets built to match the Geith ones we had turned out great and took some serious abuse in shot and hardrock. Search for Geith XF buckets if I had enough posts I'd link a pic, probably overkill but definitely food for thought the shank/surrounding area is massive.

 

[OCR]

Bucket Wear Protection:

Beautifull workmanship

That's almost an understatment... couldn't get much better... :thumbsup

Of course, our equipment isn't nearly as big, but I love doing that type of work, and we have most of the tools, and skill, to do it.

Would make a dandy winter project, if only... I had a decent shop... :Banghead

Clever idea of cutting that C-clamp in half, and being able to use it about any place... just weld it right where it's needed... :cool2

A very informative post, Jam... thank you.



OCR

 

[cps]

Clever idea of cutting that C-clamp in half, and being able to use it about any place... just weld it right where it's needed... :cool2

OCR

yea i thought so too ocr! beats the old wedge style thing the boys i used to work with used!!

Already have ben looking around the shop for an old steel one, most of them are crappy cast of some sort!

But il be sure to try it out when i get one

 

[rshackleford]

i like the sacrificial metal idea best. i am seriously looking at chocky bars or something called laminite. i guess it white steel over mild steel that is easy to weld on.

 

[JDOFMEMI]

Well, my $0.02 is that you do not have a wear problem, but a problem of poor quality steel and poor welding techniques in the bucket build. The pictures you showed look like they still have most of the original thickness. There is some wear, but not enough to be the sole cause of the problem, in my opinion. I have found that with a good Cat or ESCO bucket, you can get a long life, and with a lot of others, they are needing rebuilt very soon. Based on the lack of wear on the shank adapters, the bucket is not that old.

I have had some aftermarket buckets come apart just like yours, or worse, with no more wear than you show, while a good quality bucket will keep digging when the adapters are worn to a rounded hump, and the edges are scalloped 5 to 6 inches deep between the teeth. Chinese buckets are the worst, and Italian made are not much better, in my experience.
I would invest in some Brinell 500 for the leading edge, and make sure you get a full 100% weld when you put it in. If you are in a lot of rock, use pin on leading edge protection that does not stick out the sides. The boly on wings are good in spft material, but add a lot of leverage in rock. The angled leverage helps cause what you have now.

For wear protection, instead of buying high dollar stuff, I use old cutting edges from dozers and scrapers. The steel in them is hard, and the price is right. As already stated, leave gaps where the dirt can build up, and when they wear through the weld holding them on, add new ones.

 

[CM1995]

For wear protection, instead of buying high dollar stuff, I use old cutting edges from dozers and scrapers. The steel in them is hard, and the price is right. As already stated, leave gaps where the dirt can build up, and when they wear through the weld holding them on, add new ones.

Well said Jerry, old cutting edges are excellent material for wear strips. You've already got the $$$ out of them on the dozer and they make an excellent second life as wear strips on various types of buckets. D8R edges on the bottom of the 953 bucket to the D5G edges underneath my skid bucket.

 

[rino1494]

We dig in nothing but rock and hardpan. Our Cat bucket wore a hole right through on the bottom. We welded 3/4" AR400 strips on the bottom and on the sides. Also, the bucket cracked along the weld where the ears attach and on the top of the bucket. We welded gussets from the ears to the bucket and plug welded plates on top of the bucket. Every winter, the buckets get hardfaced.

 

[WOZOM-MARG]

CHOCKY BAR, normally reaches HB700 at least, it's wildly used in GET area and mining industry for increasing the performance , prolonging the equipment life and reducing the downtime. Check my pictrue, it's just one of them. Hope it's useful~
By the way, I'm new here and would like to learn and share more information~

 

[rshackleford]

Instead of buying chocky bars we ended up cutting grader blade and welding it on. We build in lots of little spots for dirt to get stuck. It seems to work great. We are also very religious about keeping side cutters and strike offs on the buckets. On our bucket that tore apart the side cutter actually got welded on and became part of the structure in that corner that cracked out.

 

[Nige]

I never saw this thread before but here's my thoughts: -

1. The bucket sidebar will always need protection. Leaving off a sidecutter for whatever reason is tantamount to saying "This bucket is scrap" because you're exposing the structure of the bucket to wear.
2. Using a tooth that is too long coupled with using the teeth as a prybar can produce excessive stresses in the welds between the sidebar and the lip casting that will rip open welds like the photos that started this thread off in the first place.
3. Bolt-on sidecutters are there to protect the lower end of the sidebar but they are not necessarily the best way of doing it if conditions are very abrasive because sidecutters only seem to protect the outside corner of the bucket sidebar and not the inside one, this is especially true when the sidecutter has worn a bit. Also it's very common for wear to take place in the sidebar above the area that's protected by the sidecutter. A solution is wrap-around sidebar protectors, if you have the wear issue higher up then go for double. A lot of buckets have the holes for mounting them already drilled in the sidebar. I've attached a couple of illustrationsw below for comparison.
4. Some wear protection in the form of transverse plates welded across the back of the bucket is always a good idea. On both drawings below you can see this.