Welding receivers to blade

[BrianGrenier]

On the old road grader I have mocked-up a couple of 12"x2" trailer receiver tubing, 1/4" alloy steel, that will accept a pair of mounts connected to my new (old) 10' snowplow.
What I am wondering is, can I maybe get satisfactory welds with my Lincoln 100hd using .035 wireflux core with preheat?
I'm planning on getting all the paint off, then preheat with the torch. The frame of the blade is 1.5" and thicker at the corners.

 

[Willie B]

No

 

[skyking1]

you could do it with 035 solid wire and a 240V wirefeed. the 120 volt boxes are not going to give you good results on something that beefy.
You'd do better with a buzzbox dragging some 1/8" 7018

 

[56wrench]

You could tack them on with your mig and then find someone with a portable to finish welding with 7018 stick. Also add some gussets on the sides. Even then, the receivers may be on the light side-time will tell. Those blades are built fairly light and will probably last if you are the guy running it but if you are using it hard or let someone else run it, you may run into durability issues. Front-mount blades on graders are usually fairly robust for good reason

 

[Willie B]

A little compact tractor weighing 1500 LBS, those receivers would be adequate, you'd still need a better welder.

 

[Old Doug]

Just a thought are you going to pull the recivers or the pins? I dont know your welders but i have a 110 mig that would weld that together i have worked most of my life as a welder. so i know what i am talking about. You could bolt the hitches on if your welder dosent do it but preheating will help.

 

[repowerguy]

You’re gonna be chasing a lot of weak spots one at a time. Years back we made a front blade for a Galion 503A grader out of a 6’ King Kutter 3 point grader blade. No amount of reinforcements seemed to be enough to keep the blade straight on a machine the size of that 503. The fix was a salvaged piece of moldboard from another 503. Your grader looks to be much larger and heavier than our Galion. Easy does it will be the key to any success.

 

[BrianGrenier]

Summer is over and my thoughts have turned to winter and snowplowing.
My friend and neighbor made me a good deal on this old 10'+ snowplow. The old plow has evidey that pushing snow can bend 1" steel.

It's easy to imagine 10-20 yards of heavy snow being pushed in some conditions like when attempting to move a snow berm farther away from the roadbed.

Anyway and putting aside my welding skills for now and thinking about how to do a better mount, I have couple pieces of angle that I put on the mock-up. Seems like it's a little beefier.

But maybe the weak link is the receiver adapters which are 3/16 wall channel by 6 in long that go into the 12-in long receivers. The hitch adapters have 3/4 in ears with 1" holes for pins to the plow.

I could start all over, fresh, but the receivers seemed to have some merit.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[BrianGrenier]

Here's another picture of the mock-up...the hitch adapters would go inside the receivers and be secured by 3/4" pins. Bolting the mount is an option...

Maybe not strong enough??

 

[Delmer]

Receiver hitch parts are too light to waste time with, in my opinion. Go to some junk yards and find an old govt truck that has a bracket that would have held a plow like that, either cut it off and make it fit, or copy it. You're relying on the bending strength of a fairly small tube, that tube would be fine as PART of the compressive or tensile load, but not enough for the whole load.

The plow has a breakaway for a truck hitting a curb, the cutting edge will fold under. But that won't happen if you're pushing a whole bank of snow because the whole blade will be loaded.

 

[BrianGrenier]

Thanks again for the suggestions. They caused me to review the mock-up and I came up with what is roughly shown in the picture. I had some 1-1/2" plate that can mount using existing 2" holes and 2" bolts. Some additional holes would be required to keep it from swinging around the 2" bolts. The plow would mount through the 1" solid bar on the bottom.

Better, right?

 

[Willie B]

I'm not an engineer.
I think your original idea is best except the components you chose are too fragile.
Receiver tube is built for a different purpose. It gets far less load & in a different direction. I think 5" square tube with 1/2" wall would work if you make them as long as possible. Solid square 4" bar stock will need to be chamfered on the corners to slide inside it. It'll still require considerable grinding to fit.
This whole assembly needs a real welder. If it is your first project welding heavy steel, you need skilled help with the welding.

 

[Delmer]

That's better, it wouldn't surprise me if those pieces are 4-10X stronger than the receiver style. The weak point is the attachment to the grader "box" like you stated. That would be a good place for a good welder, or make it bigger before you weld it on? not that bad to cut it off if it bends either.

 

[BrianGrenier]

Torch issues are slowing the project.

I bought a small torch that wasn't up to cutting the 1-1/2" plate. The torch came with some spare Victor parts.

Brought a new Victor torch base, Victor propane tip 4-gnp, i rebuilt the oxygen regulator, bought a new propane regulator, good hoses, have full bottles.
Watched a couple of YTube how to light that torch. I can't get the flame to get to a point and make a star pattern on propane and oxygen. It requires a different lighting technique than acetylene.

Propane pressure at about 10psi, oxygen at 50.

That 4-gnp is a Big tip. Maybe that's the issue.

 

[BrianGrenier]

Maybe the oxygen tank is too small to run a big propane tip?

Oxygen to fuel ratio is said to be four times higher using propane fuel v acetylene.

 

[Delmer]

Oxygen is just compressed gas, so the cylinder size shouldn't matter like Propane or Acetylene. 4 is a big tip, isn't that for 4" thickness? you'd want a 1 or 2 I thought. Are you looking at videos for oxy propane cutting? it works different than acetylene and I don't remember how, just that it is different.

 

[BrianGrenier]

Increasing the oxygen to propane ratio is getting me closer. It seems to take a lot less propane. Turning the propane pressure way down is next. It's not like lighting a acetylene oxygen torch.

 

[BrianGrenier]

Oxygen is just compressed gas, so the cylinder size shouldn't matter like Propane or Acetylene. 4 is a big tip, isn't that for 4" thickness? you'd want a 1 or 2 I thought. Are you looking at videos for oxy propane cutting? it works different than acetylene and I don't remember how, just that it is different.

It seems that a number four tip is bigger than what I should be using. Airgas sold it to me when I told them I'm cutting inch and a half.

Getting the propane turned way down is helping, but when it looks close, it pops and goes out.

I am looking at videos for propane oxygen and Smith had a good one. He kept turning up the gas turning up the oxygen, turning up the gas. Seems to me I keep turning down the propane turning up the oxygen.

I'll try to post a YouTube

 

[BrianGrenier]

Should have trimmed the vid better.

 

[BrianGrenier]

The Radnor (Victor) handle I bought from aigas call for a radnor ca 35. I bought a used one from eBay. I also bought a #2 propane victor tip.