Welding rod recommentation for wear surface build-up

I'm going to resurface the moving and fixed jaw plates on my vintage rock crusher. The surface is ridged and some of the ridges need built up so it's not just a matter of applying hardface,although once the ridges are rebuilt I will probably top-coat the ridge peaks with hardface. The jaws see, shall we say, severe duty, squeezing rocks until they break meaning abrasion under high pressure. Can anyone recommend from experience a good rod selection for this? My welder is a classic Lincoln 225 AC tombstone buzzbox. Also it would be nice to use a rod that's not too exotic and expensive.
JawPlateResized.jpg
 
I am not a weldsnob please but in this case you will be going worse than backwards if you use the wrong/cheap rod, crushing rock is my trade OK. First thing is you need to KNOW what that jaw die is made of. Most will be a manganese alloy and assuming that is what your antique jaw die is cast from we used to use a rod called BU90, pretty sure that is a Lincoln number but we have not used sticks for this work for 30 years, all wire feed now. Any rod supplier should be able to supply a build up rod for manganese. Your going to need a DC welder and DO NOT use hardface rod no matter what anyone tells you as it will quickly spall and begin to chunk off the die.

On to safety, I assume this is going to be a show piece?
I witnessed a child come very close to getting killed at a show where they were demo"ing an old jaw like that when it spit a grapefruit sized round rock 50" in the air and landed at the child"s feet, if your going to operate it where people can be hit by debri
1.Install a thick steel plate over the top of the jaw that is exactly 90 degrees from the opening
2. dont let anyone stand where they could get hit by deflected pieces.
3. Do not crush round gravel, river rock, field stones, (blank) heads or whatever your local terminology is. Limestone fragments are safest.
Off my stool, sorry.
 
Thanks for the info. Lincoln Wearshield Jet-LH BU-90 looks pretty good and the price is not outrageous, about $5.00 per pound. From your experience I assume that this works well on manganese steel, that is not mentioned in Lincoln's description.

Another candidate is a rod specified for buildup of manganese steel like Wearshield 15CRMN. It's more expensive, what do you think?

My crusher is a Diamond Iron Works 916. It's not really a showpeice, I use it. I may show it at some point because it's interesting. At this point its not too easy to move around, around 4500 lb of deadweight. Your point is well taken about round hard rock, I quit doing fieldstone because it's hard on the crusher (pun intended). I threw a grapefruit-sized round piece of granite glacial fieldstone in there as a test once and it ejected it straight up at high speed and flew around my garage a while. I'm glad I didn't get hit, I bet that woulda left a mark. I mostly crush native limestone, broken concrete, and used brick mortar from demolition. The crusher is well-behaved when feeding those materials.
CrusherPTO.jpg

Lincoln Wearshield 15CrMn
 
Welding build up on the jaw crusher plate will cause it to warp. Then you will never get it to seat. A loose plate will wear the mounting base. I spent several years in the crushing industry and never did we try to save an old jaw plate. Many parts were built up but not jaw plates. Some plates you could turn end for end.
 
Stoody has a guidebook for crushing, grinding and screening. I'm looking at it and it is quite informative. To tell if it's manganese, use a pocket magnet. Manganese is non magnetic. It may have a very weak magnetic pull if it's work hardened but steel will have a strong magnetic pull. Don't let it get above 500 deg's. There may be more info on the net to help you.
 
Hey Stick welding, I think you put me on to something. The plate was magnetic. Then I bumped it with a 4 1/2" grinder with a cutoff wheel. Produced a really long orange spark stream with vivid bombbursts. I think this is cast low-to medium carbon steel! The spark stream from a 6" I-beam, that happened to be next to the plate produced a similar spark stream. The funny thing is I took the magnet to the cheek plates and the were nearly non-magnetic ... probably those do have a high manganese content. Based on these findings I think I'll run a test bead with plain jane 6011 and if it looks good I'll proceed with a buildup. Thanks!
 
I'm a crane operator and use the crane to change and flip the jaws in cruchers a lot. They weld the lifting eyes to the jaws with only stainless steel rods. We work at several different plants and all use the same. They are a manganese alloy.
 
I wouldn't use 6011. Try some of the hardfacing on a scrap piece to set your heat. If it looks good then try a little on your plate.
 

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