Building a flail mower

[Renze]

Last Wednesday (my "resting day" because of my head injury) i put the headstock in the shop, so i can look at it when im drinking a beer in the shop when i cant sleep at night

 

[Renze]

Got a little progress last saturday. My coworker milled the radius in the 2 by 4 tubes so i didnt have to do it with an angle grinder, creating large gaps that need to be welded and distort uneven.

This still needs some gusseting, and once those welds are cold i will weld the bushings in the tubes at the exact location. It doesnt make sense to be precise when theres lots of welding to be done that distorts my fit.

 

[ArlyA]

just following neat project.

 

[Renze]

Another saturday of slow progress: after i welded the arms, i welded the bushes on their ends. Whatever the arms would warp during welding wont effect the bushing alignment when i weld them last.

Pins installed, the trolley crane is pure joy, even when its only two directional because this old chicken barn doesnt have more headroom to make it three directional

 

[Renze]

The drawback of long drawn out jobs is that you forget the plan:
2 months ago i figured the rearmost arm should be welded against the backside of the existing vertical C channel reinforcement so the gearbox will line up to the pulley.
2 weeks ago i started fabricating, saw that the flail housing was too short to weld both tubes to its side so i moved them back so both would fit.

When putting the gearbox on the 6 splined sleeve i noticed that my input shaft wouldnt line up to the pulley on the headstock. After a week of making myself feel like doing so i cut up my work to move both arms an inch forward.

Last saturday i welded it back in the right position, tomorrow i will offset the other arm.

 

[ArlyA]

Ya, I do the same the same thing. I have parts and forget where they are!

 

[Renze]

Ya, I do the same the same thing. I have parts and forget where they are!

I am an engineer, others work by my plans. And sometimes they think theres an easier way and deviate from the plan, to discover later on that things dont work out in the end. I shared my fault in the WhatsApp group from work, admitting that even an engineer should stick to the plan when hes executing one

Theres no better way to illustrate that a drawn out execution phase of a plan often doesnt mix well with the planning phase, resulting in oversights

 

[Renze]

....so i cut the rearmost arm off to move it 1 1/4 inch forward, and chamfered the forward arm because it was already on the front edge of the mower body... This time the shaft lines up nicely.

 

[Renze]

My colleague at work milled a hole in the gearbox mounting bracket. Or milled it clean after i torched the center out.

Then i had to torch another hole in the mounting plate so i could undo the bearing clamp in the future.

 

[Renze]

Because i use a smaller diameter pulley, the belts are going to get too close for comfort, to the bolt heads of the guard bracket. I was thinking of machining down a drill shaft so i could drive it through the M8 hole, or lathing an adapter with thin shaft which clamps the drill with a bolt.

Eventually i just beat it out of the way with a sledge, countersunk the holes, mounted it back the other way around and beat it back straight