I bought a rusty 3 point 6 foot wide blade from the local tractor auction for $40. It was worn, rusted and needed some love.
First thing I did was drop the wear blade held on with eight 5/8 inch plow bolts. Most of those snapped off or I had to cut them off.
So I built the wear blade back up with some homogenous high alloy hard facing rod. When grinding off the rust on the leading edge with my little 9 inch 240v grinder I could tell the wear blade its self was at the least tool steel, maybe even abrasion resistant alloy such as AR400.
The backing for the wear blade was warped from rust exfoliation and had holes rusted in it where it contacted the backing. So I cut that off with my plasma cutter and replaced the rusted 1/4 inch stamped backing with 3/8 thick 8 inch wide hot rolled. Welded the old 1/4 inch top to the 3/8 new backing with 5/32 Excalibur rod at 160 amps on the front and old 3/16 inch 7024 "jet rod" at 300 amps for the back.
There were some horizontal 1.5x3/16 angle iron guides that allow the blade to stick out more to the left or right. These ran across about 3/4 the width of The blade. It was also rusty. Cut those off, replaced with 1.5x1/4 angle as wide as the blade.
Its pretty much finished. Just have to drill or cut out eight 5/8 holes in that 3/8 backing to attach the wear blade to the and then maybe paint it.
I will get the old rusted blade bits and get some pictures up this weekend.
All the new metal only cost me about $74. New hardware was about $40, for 8 plow bolts and some 3/4 inch fine thread bolts for the adjustable elevation, had some of the nuts and washers in my junk collection.
First thing I did was drop the wear blade held on with eight 5/8 inch plow bolts. Most of those snapped off or I had to cut them off.
So I built the wear blade back up with some homogenous high alloy hard facing rod. When grinding off the rust on the leading edge with my little 9 inch 240v grinder I could tell the wear blade its self was at the least tool steel, maybe even abrasion resistant alloy such as AR400.
The backing for the wear blade was warped from rust exfoliation and had holes rusted in it where it contacted the backing. So I cut that off with my plasma cutter and replaced the rusted 1/4 inch stamped backing with 3/8 thick 8 inch wide hot rolled. Welded the old 1/4 inch top to the 3/8 new backing with 5/32 Excalibur rod at 160 amps on the front and old 3/16 inch 7024 "jet rod" at 300 amps for the back.
There were some horizontal 1.5x3/16 angle iron guides that allow the blade to stick out more to the left or right. These ran across about 3/4 the width of The blade. It was also rusty. Cut those off, replaced with 1.5x1/4 angle as wide as the blade.
Its pretty much finished. Just have to drill or cut out eight 5/8 holes in that 3/8 backing to attach the wear blade to the and then maybe paint it.
I will get the old rusted blade bits and get some pictures up this weekend.
All the new metal only cost me about $74. New hardware was about $40, for 8 plow bolts and some 3/4 inch fine thread bolts for the adjustable elevation, had some of the nuts and washers in my junk collection.
