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Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by Don52

If you still have it do you have a picture?

-Don

Unfortunately, I do not. I kept the blower at my uncles house. When he passed away, my EX aunt gave MY $2500 Ariens 1336 blower to her F'n brother. And although I had the owners manual, with the serial number, and engine serial number, but no receipt because it was purchased over 20 years prior, the local police said I can't get it back.

However, I can describe exactly how it was done. A piece of maybe 1/8" flat bolted to the side of the blower where the shoe would bolt. The axle shaft was solid round, welded to the flat, in the diameter that fit the Yamaha bogie wheel. The axle had two grooves in it for snap rings to retain the wheel on the inner and outer. The axle was just long enough to keep the wheel as close as possible to the side of the blower.
Did it grab some of the snow because it stuck out......Yes. But it was much better than the steel shoes. If it was clean concrete, the steel shoe would grab on the right side because this blower had a lawn tractor battery on the front. It really sucked to have to fight it. The wheel did help. But now they run the poly shoes which I think would be the best choice if you can try them.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Went back and checked my hard surface rod stash.... The Firepower and the Shark rods are the ones I've been using lately and they both worked well... the MG 769's are the ones I got for free that I haven't tried yet.
Attachment 1739429
Attachment 1739430
Attachment 1739431

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by Stick-man

I had an Ariens 1336, 13hp and 36" wide. It had a starting battery mounted on the front. The steel side shoes would dig into the concrete, especially the right side because of the weight of the battery. I made up a set of wheels for it. I took a flat, welded on a round for the axle and used bogie wheels from a Yamaha snowmobile. They only stuck out 1.25 - 1.5"

If you still have it do you have a picture?

-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

I had an Ariens 1336, 13hp and 36" wide. It had a starting battery mounted on the front. The steel side shoes would dig into the concrete, especially the right side because of the weight of the battery. I made up a set of wheels for it. I took a flat, welded on a round for the axle and used bogie wheels from a Yamaha snowmobile. They only stuck out 1.25 - 1.5"

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

I always liked the Stoody 31 rods. Lays down a thick smooth bead when you get the amps set right.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by Don52

So true. On the first hardcoating application, one of the Rockmount electrodes would weld fine for about one inch and then extinguish. I checked with Rockmount and they said that my voltage was too high, which caused the rod to burn up a into the coating causing a deep cup on the end of the electrode. I switched from my Dynasty 200DX welder to the Lincoln 210 MP and it welded fine.

This time I had the opposite problem. I had to increase the arc length as I welded along to keep the arc going out. I found that increasing the DIG function and the welding current from 125 to 130 amps helped. The longitudinal welds on the edge of the skid were the last beads that I made and they went much better than the previous ones.

-Don

I wasn't a big fan of the Stoody's, but again, the 5/32 rods I had were too big for the job. Others on here seem to like them, but I prefer the Shark's. A neighbor dropped off a box of another brand for me to try too. Up here $3 to $5 Cdn./rod isn't uncommon.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by timrb

I don't know the first thing about snow blowers, so here comes a stupid question...

Since the skids seem to wear out in short order, isn't there some way to accomplish whatever it is they do with wheels?

Tim

I had a Craftsman 1032 Driftbreaker Snowblower that had wheels on the auger housing (like this one):
Attachment 1739323
It was difficult to keep them from locking up with rust, so you had to keep up with lubrication.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by whtbaron

I've had to switch brands periodically due to availability as well. Some just like it hotter than others, and depending on what the parent material is, that can be an issue at times. Sometimes it's hard to make them pretty... some brands just seem to attach in gobs. I haven't done much since I got the DC so I'm looking forward to see what it can do relative to the old AC buzz boxes.

So true. On the first hardcoating application, one of the Rockmount electrodes would weld fine for about one inch and then extinguish. I checked with Rockmount and they said that my voltage was too high, which caused the rod to burn up a into the coating causing a deep cup on the end of the electrode. I switched from my Dynasty 200DX welder to the Lincoln 210 MP and it welded fine.

This time I had the opposite problem. I had to increase the arc length as I welded along to keep the arc going out. I found that increasing the DIG function and the welding current from 125 to 130 amps helped. The longitudinal welds on the edge of the skid were the last beads that I made and they went much better than the previous ones.

-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

I've had to switch brands periodically due to availability as well. Some just like it hotter than others, and depending on what the parent material is, that can be an issue at times. Sometimes it's hard to make them pretty... some brands just seem to attach in gobs. I haven't done much since I got the DC so I'm looking forward to see what it can do relative to the old AC buzz boxes.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

So I finally stick welded some Stoody XHC hardfacing rods on Ray’s skid. I made a solid pad of hardface on the wear are shown above. I also added a bead of hardface longitudinally on the edges of the skid. I did this because the wear was most severe on the edge of the skid.

Skid showing the hardface that I added.
Attachment 1739261

It took me a while to get nice looking beads. At $2 per electrode, I didn’t want to practice too much. The electrodes also behaved very differently compared to the Rockmount hardfacing electrodes that I previously used.

Here is the bottom view of both skids.
Attachment 1739264

I painted the skids so they look nice. I used my 1000 watt shop light to help bake the paint.
Attachment 1739265

-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by yesindeed

Would the hardfacing leave more marks or scratches on the concrete sidewalk? Sometimes on my little 40 foot wide property i do my elderly neighbors' sidewalks also. its just as easy to do 5 or 6 houses at a time as it is to do just mine. some have paving stones for a front walk.

I have an asphalt driveway and a concrete sidewalk. I haven’t noticed any marks on either.

-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by Don52

Can either of you recommend a good stick hardface rod for this application?

-Don

Would the hardfacing leave more marks or scratches on the concrete sidewalk? Sometimes on my little 40 foot wide property i do my elderly neighbors' sidewalks also. its just as easy to do 5 or 6 houses at a time as it is to do just mine. some have paving stones for a front walk.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by whtbaron

Manitoba gets it's fair share as well.... more in the forecast for this weekend.

Very often when it snows in the upper peninsula, it just rains in the lower peninsula. I am guessing that your snowfall is similar to what Ray gets in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Manitoba gets it's fair share as well.... more in the forecast for this weekend.
Attachment 1737100

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by whtbaron

The last hard surfacing rods I bought were branded from Shark, they seem to work ok and were a little cheaper than the name brand ones. I've used Stoody in the past and found the 5/32 harder to work with than the 1/8, but I was welding on cultivator shovels which is thinner material than you have. I did some hard facing on the skids for the blade this year and wish I'd done more. Gravel roads are very abrasive as well.

I did purchase the hardfacing rods on EBay so they were slightly less than half price.

The hardfaced skids has lasted nearly two seasons. The hardfaced skid could go longer, but I would rather not wear the parent metal. The original skid without hardface only lasted one season. I don’t think that I will need very many rods to hardface the area in the red box.

Ray said that he will drop off the skids the next time he is in the lower peninsula of Michigan, which should be in a few weeks.

-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

The upper peninsula of Michigan gets a ton of snow. Here is a picture of ray snowblowing his driveway last week.

Attachment 1737092
-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

The last hard surfacing rods I bought were branded from Shark, they seem to work ok and were a little cheaper than the name brand ones. I've used Stoody in the past and found the 5/32 harder to work with than the 1/8, but I was welding on cultivator shovels which is thinner material than you have. I did some hard facing on the skids for the blade this year and wish I'd done more. Gravel roads are very abrasive as well.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Ray took off the skids for inspection. Now that I know where the skids wear, I can apply a continuous pad of hardface where it will do the most good. The wear hasn’t reached the base metal of the skids yet. Ray said that due to the larger size of the skids, he can’t tip the skids any more to better equalize the wear.

Attachment 1737087
I bought 10# of hardface rods that are 5 points harder on the Rc scale so they should wear even slower.

-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by timrb

I don't know the first thing about snow blowers, so here comes a stupid question...

Since the skids seem to wear out in short order, isn't there some way to accomplish whatever it is they do with wheels?

Tim

Years ago I refurb'd a snowthrower for one of my Cub Cadet garden tractors and was tired of fixing shoes/skids. I added small pneumatic tires with wings added to the side of the thrower housing, I worked very well. When I was a kid my dad had an old(at the time) Simplicity walk behind snow thrower and it had cast iron wheels that were about 3" in diameter. There was enough weight that they were forced down through the snow and made good contact with the concrete drive.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

So far the skid is working well. the larger area doesn't dig into the dirt portion of driveway and the hardface doesn't gouge the asphalt part of the driveway.

10. Trying out skids
Attachment 1721549

-Don

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by mla2ofus

Don, if you get AR and cut it with your torch don't start thinking there's something with the torch 'cause AR is prone to blowback when torch cutting. Use an old #2 or #3 you don't care about and turn the oxy pressure up a little.

Stonebreaker...I dont wanna start an argument but ive never had any trouble cutting AR plate, Ive cut it 3 inch thick and more already, one thing i usually do is preheat the cut line a bit with the weedbuner on the thick stuff, but the normal 1 inch and 2 inch stuff I work with I never had no problem with, generally run about 7 or 8pds acetylene and 55 oxygen and #4 tip. Abit more pressure on both for the 3inch and thicker stuff. Manganese plate will get squirrly though

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Don, if you get AR and cut it with your torch don't start thinking there's something with the torch 'cause AR is prone to blowback when torch cutting. Use an old #2 or #3 you don't care about and turn the oxy pressure up a little.

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by Don52

If I used AR plate, would the oxyacetylene heating used for bending the plate destroy the hardness of the plate, or would the normal cooling rate preserve the hardness?

-Don

Wont hurt it a bit, you gotta preheat AR plate anyway so there is your preheat. Let it cool naturally, if you want you can cover it a weld blanket to let it cool slower but it not really necessary

Re: Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

Originally Posted by Popeye an old miner

Wont hurt it a bit, just let it cool off like normal, you need to preheat AR plate anyway so there is your preheating

Thanks,
-Don