Yet another bucket-mod thread

[JoeBuyer]

Do I claim that this is the best and safest rigging setup? No, not in the least, and I understood the risks involved and deemed them to be acceptable for a one-time only project. I just wanted to illustrate that a receiver on a bucket can be used for more things than just moving trailers.

A great balancing job on that slab !

[joshuabardwell]

Here are the pics.









The perfectionist in me is tempted to grind smooth some of those welds and try to go over them again and make them look nicer. The pragmatist in me says that I'm not likely to make them look any nicer the second time than I did the first time! Practically speaking, however, I wonder if some of them are a bit thin and need to be gone over again--like, for example, the right-most one in the last picture. I was working with 3/32" rod because the bucket is 1/8" and I didn't want to burn through. Now that I've got a pad of metal from the existing bead, I wonder whether it would be worthwhile to go back over it with 1/8" rod. It's possible that the larger rod will do a better job of filling the joint smoothly and maybe look nicer too. What do y'all think?

BTW, this morning, I remembered another "tip" that I'm sure I'm not the first weldor to figure out: when I was having trouble getting a good ground on the flat stock, another thing I did was take the receiver tube (a five-pound hunk of un-painted metal) and just clamp the ground clamp to it and set it on top of the work piece. Bingo! Instant ground! Kind of like those magnetic ground clamps you see, except without the magnet. I thought I was pretty clever for coming up with that.

[k0ua]

If it was me, I would take that 1/8 rod and go over some of those welds on the back side. Clean them up first real well with a brush on your angle grinder, and hit another pass on the weld and a little higher up into the meat of the 3/8 flat bar. I would also do the ends of the flat bar, and I would have tied into the vertical upright "meat" on the bucket. I may go overboard, but it darn sure aint going to fall off when I get done with them. Yes it is interesting when you get a large chunk of metal heated up by welding how long it stays pretty hot..It usually doesn't take me long to inspect it either

James K0UA

[kennyd]

Oh, another thing I learned: tip the hook slightly away from the direction of the first tack welds, so that when they cool, they pull it perpendicular. Otherwise, they will pull it out of true.

As one who welds a lot of hooks, I can verify that!

[Gary Fowler]

I suppose that the welds look pretty good for a beginner. NOW what you need to do is put a grinder blade on and grind all the knots off the weld and make them kind of uniform. Then take some 7018 and run two more passes on each bead. Start with one of them on the bottom and keep the center of your puddle on the edge of the weld so you are putting weld metal on the base and about half of it overlapping the original weld bead. Clean it up with power brush to remove all the slag then weld another bead on top of that one. This bead should tie into the bottom bead and overlap the top edge of the original bead. One the first pass your rod and should be about 45 degrees from horizontal like thus?/ more or less. The 2nd pass the rod needs to be more horizontal and pointed into that undercut. Go slow and let the 7018 fill in that undercut but firs make sure that you grind it so you have removed all the porosity and slag from the undercut. If you prep those ugly welds with a grinder to make them smoother and more uniform, your subsequent passes will look lots better. Welding over ugly just makes more ugly. I learned that early in my welding career. If you mess up say by not properly cleaning the metal and the weld comes our with bug holes (porosity), lumps, low spots etc, that is why they invented grinders. Grind it fairly smooth and weld over it. The secret to smooth uniform welds is travel speed. Keep it fairly constant unless you have a low spot to fill in then just a bit of hesitation to let the rod burn a little longer there then start back with you normal travel speed. Most beginners try to travel too fast, slow down and give the rod time to burn and most of that undercut will fill in unless you are running way too many amps.
Many of your welds are a little skimpy so extra passes are needed anyway. Leave 2 or 3 smaller beads on your cap (top pass) rather than trying to make one huge pass.
Finally weld all the way around the hook. This will keep moisture from getting underneath it and rusting out the plate underneath. You may get a small flare like a little volcano from vent gas when you finally close it off but just let the flare die down and the weld cool off then fill in the little hole.
I attached a couple of photos of my hooks and a bracket I built but the braket photo isnt very good but I cant delete it> You can see how I wrapped the weld around the hooks on my Kubota

[joshuabardwell]

I suppose that the welds look pretty good for a beginner. NOW what you need to do is put a grinder blade on and grind all the knots off the weld and make them kind of uniform.

Gary: Funny you should say that. I decided that "good enough" wasn't good enough, so I started grinding the welds mostly off and going back with 1/8" 7018. Here are some pics.



I'll go back and weld all the way around the hooks.

[Gary Fowler]

OK much better. I would wrap the welds all the way around the corner and across the end of your flat bar. That is where any strain would tend to concentrate the forces. Also if you have a 3/32 7018, put another pass on the hook where you still have some undercut on the top edge and weld them all the way around if possible. Ends dont have to be much more than water tight. It looks better that way. Also since all the force is going to be pulling toward the front of the FEL, make sure all the welds on the side nearest the tractor are very good welds. That 7018 makes a much prettier and stronger weld.

[Gary Fowler]

OH YEAH, congratulation on joining the bucket hook crowd.

[mjncad]

Welding and concrete work are simple in concept; but a lot more difficult to do in reality.

[joshuabardwell]

Welding and concrete work are simple in concept; but a lot more difficult to do in reality.

You can say that again! Sheesh.