Anyway, it passed the 2 lb hammer test, and Chris was happy with it. I will wait to hear how it works on the mower.
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My friend Chris has an old John Deere mower, which the mower guy says was
made in 1961. The deck has some rust and dents, but all the pulleys spin
freely, and the tensioner works okay.
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The brackets that hold the deck to the mower are just angle iron, and one of
the brackets is cracked 3/4 of the way around, where it is welded to the deck.
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So I did some google'ing, and asked on the s.e.j.w newsgroup, and the consensus
was: clean the metal, drill the ends of the cracks, vee the cracks on both
sides, and weld both sides. So I started by cleaning things up with a wire
knot wheel.
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Then I drilled the ends of all the cracks with a 1/8" drill bit. The deck
metal is really soft, because the drill went right through it.
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Then I used my 4 1/2" angle grinder to vee the cracks. It was a little awkward
getting to all of the cracks, but I got most of them.
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Time for the welding. I have a 110v 140amp Daytona Mig (rebranded Cebora) that
works okay. Now that I am in a house with 230v I keep thinking about a 230v
machine, but so far this one has handled everything. After a little fiddling
I set it at 5/7 power, 3/10 wire speed and 20 cfm. I was getting good
penetration and shiny beads, but I still had trouble laying down good-looking
passes. I settled for using short beads, and piling on extra metal. Maybe I
just need to concentrate on laying down longer beads. Anyway, it passed the 2 lb hammer test, and Chris was happy with it. I will wait to hear how it works on the mower. |
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