Hey Welders---Warpage?

big tee

Well-known Member
I am building a vertical tillage tool and am putting a rolling harrow on the back for firming and smoothing. I am cheap so I took some used soil saver coulters and cut out my support discs with the plasma cutter and now I want to weld them to the axle. Question is how do I keep the shaft from warping. If I weld one side -say 1/4 of the way around and then went to the other side-180 degrees- and weld 1/4 of the way around and then let them cool and come back and finish welding would that help. It seems like everything I weld no matter how much I clamp it warps a little. The pictures of the completed baskets are a store bought ones. This is tractor related for we are going to pull it with a Deere!-Thanks---Tee
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You need to keep all the welds in line/across from each other on each disk. How your trying to weld them quickly across form each other is the only way to try and make them as straight as possible. Then when your done welding the disks to the center axle you will have to straighten the shaft with a jack/press. I saw these being made in the JD plant and they had to straighten them before the outer bars where installed.
 
Keeping them perfect is very difficult. You can straighten then in a press if you have one and can get the assy in it. You can also support the shaft and give it a whack with a mall. But the method I would use is heat. You find the long side and heat that til it just shows red then cool it. You can let them air cool or use water. You can google heat straightening, they have some excellent videos on straightening bridge beams. I would think getting anything to weld to discs without cracking off will be your biggest challenge, depending on the discs.
 
They are made without the center axle,they have a self centering bearing on each end. If they are not perfectly straight it makes no deference to the running of the basket. I do not know if they have pictures but you can look them up at Yetter.com, they build them, using their name and for JD.
 
The outer cage will contribute much more strength than the center axle. Once everything is welded together, the full length axle adds some weight but not much extra strength. Would two or four tack welds on each plate be enough to hold them in place during fabrication without warping the axle? Maybe tack weld two of the cage bars in place to establish the proper twist across all the plates before tacking the axle?

What material are you using for the cage bars? The coulters were probably high carbon steel and hardened for good wear (0.7 to 1.00 percent carbon, maybe 1080 steel or better?). Will that cause any problems with welds cracking at the cage bars?
 
Yes cracking at the welds will be an issue with those blades, how much will depend on the blade. Some weld better than others. Can't say I've ever seen them used in a structural situation before. Several people have tried to use them for stands and such with mixed results.
 
Discs are very brittle to start with, when you weld them it gets worse. If you have seen a broken disc they most always snap clean with no tearing. Mild steel when broken is usually deformed some from stretching, it's that flexibility that makes it work in structural situations. It's about alloys and what works best in each situation. The very thing that makes blades hold up for their purpose makes them a poor choice for structural uses.
 
Like I said-I am cheap. I am using 3/4 in re-bar for my cage. Menards has a 11% discount + 2% big card discount and they start out at $13 apiece for 20 footers. A lot cheaper than cold rolled. Right now I have my center disc welded in and this is my reference point to set the end ones 1/2 a notch off to set my spiral. Some manufactures use 3/4,some use 1 inch and some use pipe. Will keep you all informed-THANKS for the replies-all off you.---Tee
 
An OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) would probably use 1020 HRS for the plates for low cost, durability and ease of welding.

A couple of things to note are it looks like the OEM uses wider plates than the coulters (I'll guess 1/2 or 3/4 inch thick plates vrs 3/16 or 1/4 inch thick for the coulters) and the OEM put notches in the plates that wrap about half way around the cage rods. With the notches, the cage rods can be welded to the perimeter of the plates with two welds across the width of the plates and those welds can all be made from outside of the cage.

I'm not sure what material an OEM would use for the cage rods, probably 5/8 or 3/4 inch diameter 1020 HRS or maybe 1018 CRS for a little more strength and wear resistance. I think re-bar would be too soft and would easily bend.

Maybe someone with this type of rollers can help out the OP by measuring one that works well and has held up well.
 
Tee, usually if you heat hardened steel like you have in those discs, it will weld better. You probably don't have to be too precise, and I've been out of the welding part of my life for a ehile except my own things, but it seems as if it was 330? or maybe 430? degrees that took the temper and such out of hardended steel. Not saying it won't crack around the edges where you heat it, but the weld should hang on better
 
May I add a little insight. If you need to heat those disks, and want to make it a nice and wide path of even heat try using this. This weed burner will give an unbeleavable amount of heat and you just swirl it around. Straighten out several bent items. Spend the couple of extra bucks for the one with the piezo ignition. Very handy. Very nice tool but watch your control. Things get really hot very fast!
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good evening big tee, nice job you've done so far on the cutting and fitting, the method I would use to keep everything straight is what I call stich and go, by that I mean you lay each roller out like you have it, tack weld (no more than a 1/4" long tack), keep your heat input on the metal shaft and plates to a minimum. about 3 tacks on each side of each disc plate, tack the 2 end pieces the same, with all the plates in place lay your cross bars at the angle you want, tack them into place, again small tacks, moving from end to end don't work in one area long move from 1 end to the other back to the middle keep it moving don't let any area get hot, it takes more time but saves you a lot of time and headaches trying to straighten heat warped plates and shafts. the key big tee is paitience and keep moving, if you have 2 or three units laid out move from one to the other again keeping the amount of time and heat input to each weld to a minimum.
 
What are you using to build the tool on? I was wondeing if it will be heavy enough. My turbo till is so heavy it dogs the 5095 pulling it down the road. A few years back my neighbor bent a bar on his basket so I cut out the bad spot,maybe 16 inches, and welded in a new bar. The only rod I has was stainless and a 1/4 inch bigger. If you look across the field while it's running you can see the shinny bar.
 

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