Are you using stingers/sandviks for cutting the ice on your roads?
I have been using stingers for a long time now, use them year round, when using them for ice blading during the winter works I always take every second one out putting in a plug to keep the hole from wearing, you will find that your machine pushes through the ice easier and breaks the ice alot better, keeps your front wheels on the ground also, I always carry the plow in the front for extra weight, some here don't, there's my tip for today.
Stingers would last longer, but do wear too, easy to replace though, I always rotate mine around to get the most wear before replacing.
They look like the teeth on a milling machine. Do you have to keep the free moving. I know on the miller, if they stop spinning, they wear faster. The fella from miller said they used to try to keep them free, but it was cheaper to just change them as they started to wear on one side.
We use that same slope meter on all our graders. Very well made. You just need to remember that it reads where you are, and not where you are going. If you want 3%, and the meter starts to show 5, chances are you need to go back to where it shows 3 and judge your cut as you feel it in your ass. Just like a dozer, your best indicator are your eyes and ass. I wear a ball cap low on my forehead sometimes as the back ground can give you a false sense of grade, and the peak of the hat can block out the back ground. Having the slope meter, can verify your suspicions.
Yes you have to keep them freed up, I use tranny fluid poured over them, seems to work the best, keeps the rust away in the sockets and the spring retainer on the stinger itself, but after a while they will wear in and you get a flat spot, I turn them to get the longest wear out of them, easy to do, got just about 4 years out of my last blades on the H series, just replaced stingers when I needed to.
I always get each end of the outer blades hard surfaced and in about a foot on the back from the ends, these new stinger blades I'm using has a extra wear plate that bolts on with the blades when you install them, helps save the surface of the main blade, we are using the cheapest blades so extra has to be done to them to make them last, there are stinger blades out there that are completely hard surface plated and last forever, but pricy.
That's unlike a province to cheap out on stuff.....
We haven't had a three day storm in the longest time, maybe 9 hour storms at the most anymore, none of the new operators have never experienced a good old 3 day storm, when I first started with the department there were lots of them and lots of snow to push with them, have fun.
Remember White Juan in 2004?
