Got the spreader welded up

I went to the farm early today to work on the spreader. I made up some fish plates for whre I spliced in some channel on the sides to help support the weight of the loads, and then welded the hitch to the frame of the spreader. It was tweaked a little bit even though I fabed it up on a nice heavy flat welding table, but I got the front welded in place and then use dthe loader to push down on it while I welded the back of the hitch to the spreaders frame. We painted what would be difficult to get at while it was still upside down before flipping it over again.

I did screw up one area though that I need to fix. When I measured where the slots need to go for the tensioners on the front, I must have been standing on my head when I cut them because I was 1" too low (or 1" too high- it was upside down), so the apron slats bind underneath now when they get to the tensioners. I'll just cut another slot (drill out both sides and slit with a cutting disc on the angle grinder) where they need to be. I should have figured something was up when the holes I had previously drilled in the front cross member at work didn't line up with the tensioners when in the slot.

Not a big deal, just frustrating. I managed to get all of the welding done before the rain & hail came, and now it's a waiting game until the fields are dry enough to get out there again. Got about 1/2" yesterday and probably 1" tonight.

I also fixed the PTO sheild that was missing the back 1/2. We had it, but couldn't get it to stay on the snap ring anymore. We had a newer peice of plastic shield in the rafters in the shop from something else we fixed that only had 1/2, so I scarfed the internals fron another that was too big and cut the smaller one down to length, modified the plastic ring and put it on the spreader's 1/2. Now it slides inside the metal sheild on the front, both are free to spin, and that's one more peice out of the shop that otherwise could have been there for a very, very long time. (think it's been up there for 10 or more years already...)

Go to work tomorrow, and maybe stop by the farm tomorrow evening to reslot the channel for the tensioners and reinstall them. If I'm lucky, it'll dry enough I can haul a load with it too.

Getting it in place-


Can see my incorrect slot by the grinder. Put a fish plate over the splice, hopefully it'll hold for the rest of the life of this spreader now. I used a peice of the old toungue to do the splice, where it was too rotted to weld new steel to.


The PTO support-


Back on it's feet again-


PTO support back in place-


Close up of the front of the hitch-


Jack brace to keep it from folding with a load-


I should add- I welded up the hitch at work with a MillerMatic 200 and a Miller 350P, and did a little work with the plasma cutter to cut my angles where the channels meet. Cut the fish plates on a verticle band saw.

At home I used our Miller Thunderbolt to do the welding with 6011 and 7014 rods, and our Arc One 110v wire welder to do some of the tacking to hold things in place for fitting.

It's been a fun & challenging project, and hopefully it'll haul it's first load without any problems.

Donovan from Wisconsin

nice job! How was that wedding you went to over the weekend?

Been to better weddings. The food was good but the portions were horrible, hardly knew anybody there, and the bride was a little catty towards my wife (she has a good friendship with the groom that started in college.)

I know I'm really gonna sound old here, but the music was way too loud too for where we were sitting (about as far away as you could get). The groom's soon-to-be step mother (3 weeks) looked like she just wanted to crawl right out of her skin (grooms mother passed away about a year ago). Not sure how many others picked up on that.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Never could see the point of big church weddings (or weddings in general).......

If I do something stupid, first thing I do is look to make sure noone is looking.....Can't see the logic of going out of my way to draw a croud.

just kidding............

Nice job on the spreader tho.

Dave

dave2: weddings and manure spreaders in the same topic...now that IS a realistic combination!!

Thanks for good chuckle!!

Rick

Looks like a good job.
Even where the metal is still thick but exposed to
manure. Was the metal still robust or had it lost
it's strength and structure?
I've tried welding such metal and the metal's
composition seems to be weakened?

Don - how did you flip that over without destroying the sides/front?

Nice job!

Paul

Great Job Don , Now Spray rhat spreader down with used motor oil and a wagner power painter , and keep it that way if paint isa longway off ,,

Nice work. You kinda think like me...better overbuild it than fix it again.

Brad

Nice job!

There was quite a bit tyhat was rotted away, and that's the reason for splicing in about a 15" peice of channel on both sides where the tensioner bolts up. The side supports were busted just ahead of where they were fixed a few years ago, so it started where I was just going to replace those.

After flipping it over and closer inspection and some work with the torch, we decided it'd be better to start all over on the hitch, and just replace everything. The center toungue is 8' long 4" channels welded together to make a box just like the original, but the rest was made of a thinner sheet that was bent in a channel shape big enough to go over the 4" channel iron. It would have cost over $300 just to have the 2 7' lengths made up that I would have needed for the side supports, and I did the whole thing for about that with the slightly heavier channel iron.

I did use a little bit of the original toungue for my splices on the front, after cutting the welds holding them together and then cutting the angles for the splice on both pieces to match for a square joint.

To flip it over, we just used our loader and very carefully lifted it up & rehooked to go the rest of the way once it was on it's side. The steel on the sides on the top was replaced about 6-7 years ago as well because that was all rotted out and the gate would flop around very badly because of it.

My next project is to replace the end gate. It's been patched a number of times, so it's time to go. We've got some metric square tubing behind the barn I should be able to use for that project. Brother brought it home from work, it was gonna go in the scrap heap otherwise.

Donovan from Wisconsin