Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

[Don52]

My friend Ray lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where they get a lot of snow. He wore out the skids on his snow blower attachment to his Kubota tractor in one season. He sent me new skids and some ¼” x 3” stock. I welded the bars on the skids to extend their life. In the first picture you can see that the heel of the skid is worn almost all the way through. You will also notice that the wear wasn’t even indicating that the shoe wasn’t parallel to the ground.

1. Worn Skid


The process that I used was:
-I cut the ¼’ x 3” to about 10-1/2” long.
-I scribed the corner radius on the plate and cut it out on my band saw.
-I cleaned up the radius on my belt sander.
-I TIG welded the wear plate to the skid in four places. I used TIG because it was all set up.
-I clamped the skid in the vise and heated the wear bar in the area shown below with an oxyacetylene torch with a rosebud tip.

2. Heat bending wear bar


Next, I beat on the wear bar with a hammer to fit it to the skid. I decided to use the heat and beat method instead of my arbor press, because I was concerned with the bend exactly matching the existing skid. Then I MIG welded the wear bar to the skid as shown below.

3. Wear Bar Welded


Here are both skids welded.

4. Two Skis Welded


Here they are primed and painted

5. Skids primed and painted

[Don52]

Here they are installed on the snowblower.

6. Skids installed on snowblower


On my own 1983 Simplicity tractor I am still using the skid that came with it. I just weld additional wear bars on the bottom. After about four wear bars I cut them off and start over.
Below is a picture of my wear bar on my tractor.

7. Simplicity skid


-Don

[Welder Dave]

Really good application for some hardfacing on the bottom of the skids. Mild steel wears unbelievably fast on asphalt or concrete.

[mla2ofus]

^^^^^x 2^^^^

[Don52]

Really good application for some hardfacing on the bottom of the skids. Mild steel wears unbelievably fast on asphalt or concrete.

^^^^^x 2^^^^

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

-Don

[JBFab]

Stoody 35 is a good all around rod for this. They do make wire for hardfacing as well.

[mla2ofus]

Yeah, Stoody rod lays down a nice even bead with good thickness. Just be sure to change polarity. Oh, and get out your wallet, if you know someone who works on a quarry or rock processing plant a half rack of whatever they drink will probably get you a few sticks and they will go a long way for what you're doing. It's what I use on my wheeler plow shoes.

[Welder Dave]

Want something for severe abrasion but any general purpose hardfacing will work. Should be able to find in a small 1lb. pack for $25-$30. Lots of specialty rod suppliers have it in the small packages and sometimes the big box stores. It will last 4 times or more longer than mild steel. Some is run reverse polarity but hardfacing you aren't looking for maximum penetration. For those skids run beads parallel to the skids about 3/8-1/2 inch apart and you can put 2 layers for even more wear resistance. Clean the first pass with a wire brush and don't worry too much if you get a little porosity. As long as you get fusion it will work. 1/8" or 5/32" rods would be fine.

[John T]

Nice Job Don...

I did the same for my Dads snowblower a few years ago....

personally, I wouldnt hard face it... 1/4" mild steel worked fine.... actually made him 2 sets... so he can swap out if necessary..... easy enough to make...

[Don52]

Really good application for some hardfacing on the bottom of the skids. Mild steel wears unbelievably fast on asphalt or concrete.

Ryan Jones from the Miller forum sent me some hardfacing rods to try out. My friend and customer was back in town for Thanksgiving, so I asked him to bring back the skids, so I could try out the hardfacing rods.
The original skid was worn out in one season. We will see how long the hardface skids last.
The new skid had more surface area than the original as shown below.


Here is a view of the bottom of the hardfaced new skid.


-Don

[M J D]

Not to be critical but in that application the beads should be ran the other direction.

[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

[M J D]

The wheels would be outside of the sides of the blower. They would be running on top of the snow on at least one side.

[Popeye an old miner]

If you can get some good AR 400 plate that would work too, in any case it looks good, that hardface will make it last a long time

[Don52]

Not to be critical but in that application the beads should be ran the other direction.

I was worried that if I ran the beads the other way it would cut grooves in the asphalt when you drove the snow blower straight down the driveway. I suppose that the best thing would be weld so many beads that the pad was continuous, so it wouldn't matter which way you ran them. I used up all of the rods that Ryan send to me, so this wasn't an option in this case.

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

The wheels would be outside of the sides of the blower. They would be running on top of the snow on at least one side.

I'm not sure why, but I have never seen wheels on snow plows. Some snow plows have round muchroom shaped skids that are mounted directly behind the blade. Other snowplows that I have worked on have skids on pivots that are also mounted directly behind the blade. I have never seen a wheel on a snow plow.

-Don

[Don52]

If you can get some good AR 400 plate that would work too, in any case it looks good, that hardface will make it last a long time

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

[Popeye an old miner]

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

[Don52]

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

[Popeye an old miner]

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

[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.

[Popeye an old miner]

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

[Don52]

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


-Don

[vwguy3]

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.

[yesindeed]

[Don52]

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.


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

-Don