Lifting Lug

[Doug247]

Im sorry I wasn't criticizing your work. I wanted to complement you. I think it looks great and will work great and never fail you. I was just sharing what I had been taught and adding to the general discussion about the subject of doubler plates /re pads. I wasn't pointing out any flaws. I try not to criticise, only encourage. If something happened to it with welds like that you've got bigger problems!

[MinnesotaDave]

This is a pretty interesting thread

The one-inch-over info and the radius corners will go in my welding notebook.

My memory is not forever

Dave J.

[SquirmyPug]

Im sorry I wasn't criticizing your work. I wanted to complement you. I think it looks great and will work great and never fail you. I was just sharing what I had been taught and adding to the general discussion about the subject of doubler plates /re pads. I wasn't pointing out any flaws. I try not to criticise, only encourage. If something happened to it with welds like that you've got bigger problems!

I know and I don't mind if people criticize what I do anyway, how else would I know if I'm doing something wrong? I'm really interested in learning about the reasons and applications for using a radius and the size/thickness of the support pad.

[handtpipeline]

What about this idea: I don't see any issues with this size machine, but for a larger machine (although all of my large buckets that I can think of just have the hook or eye welded directly to the bucket with no pad, Much thicker bucket backs) What if, you put a good bevel on both sides of your eye plate, welded it out flush to outside of plate, then cut a pad out that would fit AROUND your lifting lug. Cut the opening for the lug where you would have 1/4" to 3/8" opening all the way around the lug, with a bevel. Start welding out with it, getting good fusion with the bucket and joining to the lug itself. Then weld around the outside of the pad. I'm probably not explaining it the way I intend to really... But in effect, your lug would be welded to the bucket, then the stiffener pad would be fused to the bucket and the lug itself.

Just an idea really, and probably overkill. But I like to err on the side of overkill on things like this. On my machines, I not only pull, but also set manhole segments, set pipe, set equipment in the hole...etc. Of course nobody is ever allowed UNDER anything that is suspended, BUT I don't like to drop stuff regardless.

[Doug247]

As I said, I was taught this when I worked for a dock building company. ill tell you a story for a more practical example.

My boss owned a large welding shop in the next province over. This was a separate company from the dock company. Basically his other company was set up to build anything and everything to do with pipe efficiently. They bought the 24" pipe for the 60 foot pontoons. The other company would build the pontoons and I would build the joists from steel studs and then welded them to the pontoons. Then the crew would put the wood on. His design for the docks evolved to be the best around, but not without growing pains. They built a ton of docks and marinas in a small border town, and they needed upgrades. some of the docks were damaged from ice. one was wrecked from the owner trying to plow it with his skid steer LOL. So anyways, they had 2x2 x1/4 tubing welded to the inside of the pontoons in a H shape for pile hoop ( a pile is a large pipe drove down through a hole in the dock into the lake bottom to hold the dock in place). These small tubes had no Re pads and from the flexing and banging from the waves it punctured a hole in the pipe and sunk the end of the dock into the lake. so we used a barge with a zoom boom, come alongs and chain we hoisted it and used a huge pump and a hole I cut into it to get rid of the water so we could go to work repairing. We got rid of the wimpy frame and added 4x4x3/8s tubing with the repads tomake a proper frame work. I believe the pads were 3/8s thick and the pipe was 1/4. Where the cracks were we made the plates over the 1 inch border, with thicker material. It was practical to make the plates extend over the crack, but using the 1/2" would make up for it. Also we added UHMW plastic to eliminate the noise and metal to metal shock blow that used to occur.

The idea was to get rid of the stress risers with the radius corners and reinforce the connection with the padding. Sure we could have went thicker and bigger but that gets costly with no benefits.

Ok not used to long winded postings lol sorry for any grammar mistakes. In summary, we have a few things to remember. Transfer of forces and load requires Plating. Stress riser= square corners. Surface area, of weld and reinforcement. Big crack= Big pad. Big pad= thicker pad. Bigger pad, more money. Most of the time, it will all come down to what ever you have on hand. Sadly most bosses I've worked for want quantity over quality.

[SquirmyPug]

Here is a picture of the 36" bucket after welding. All the other pictures were of the 48" bucket. Picture is a bit blurry

[weldermike]

Looking good squirmy! One of my threads a while back that started so simple went on forever, and at the end they were arguing over how a spoon is the wrong tool for scooping ice cream! Believe it or not I kept my mouth shut for once and just enjoyed the show! Great job on the pad too!

[SquirmyPug]

Looking good squirmy! One of my threads a while back that started so simple went on forever, and at the end they were arguing over how a spoon is the wrong tool for scooping ice cream! Believe it or not I kept my mouth shut for once and just enjoyed the show! Great job on the pad too!

I think I need to see that thread

[SquirmyPug]

For scale this is the 36" bucket from the last picture, thought you would like to see a lift. Not the heaviest thing lifted so far but the only picture of a lift. I think this will be the last picture for this thread