Vineyard hiller build thread

[UncleW]

I thought I had seen about everything. Satellite dishes for hillers is a new one. I mean, good grief those hillers at Ag South are just so expensive. How ya get them dishes to roll?

I was thinking they didnt need to roll, just plow(?). The absolutely brilliant part of this is the multiple adjustment directions & precision built into the dish mount. My contraption is a pain to adjust

One of those dish mounts would be perfect for my summer finger weeder!

 

[DJ54]

*** I’ve been focused on moving dirt around cause it’s cheap and I can do it by myself off my tractor. I’m 72yo and can’t walk all that well due to severing my sciatic nerve in a freak fall accident. So really can’t shovel much compost. Unless I can convince the county extension to include me in their experiments and send over a half dozen graduate students ***

Doesn't hurt to ask..!! Explaining your situation may help. Worst case scenario all they can say is no.

 

[etpm]

That view showing the mountains is great! Thanks for posting it. But the real reason for my post is the 7018 rod. First of all you should change to 7014. Same strength as 7018 but you can run it with AC. As far as hydrogen embrittlement, who cares? I mean, when your welds fail I don't care. You might though. I speak from experience. I chose the wrong steel alloy, not the wrong rod. The result was the same though. Everything was great after welding. The next day I pulled on the levers and they broke off. I ended up brazing them. Maybe your stuff won't break, maybe it will. The difference in strength between 70XX rod and 60XX rod is about 15% So maybe just use 60XX rod, lay on a slightly bigger bead, and don't worry about storage or hydrogen in your welds.
Eric

 

[UncleW]

That view showing the mountains is great! Thanks for posting it. But the real reason for my post is the 7018 rod. First of all you should change to 7014. Same strength as 7018 but you can run it with AC. As far as hydrogen embrittlement, who cares? I mean, when your welds fail I don't care. You might though. I speak from experience. I chose the wrong steel alloy, not the wrong rod. The result was the same though. Everything was great after welding. The next day I pulled on the levers and they broke off. I ended up brazing them. Maybe your stuff won't break, maybe it will. The difference in strength between 70XX rod and 60XX rod is about 15% So maybe just use 60XX rod, lay on a slightly bigger bead, and don't worry about storage or hydrogen in your welds.
Eric

Good advice! On my first arc welding adventure, I was using a 1970’s vintage 220 amp AC box that my neighbor lent me and 7018 from Harbor Freight ‘cause I’d watched YouTube videos. Got a bead one start out of 20. And it doesn’t come off easy if you stick it

Back to HF for 1/8” 6013 and 6011. Could at least weld ugly with those.

Then Amazon wore me down with a $75 140 amp inverter on Black Friday. Was just going to use it to tack stuff & then drive over to my neighbor’s Forney. Got a 5lb box of 3/32” 7014 to try along with it cause HF, Tractor Supply didn’t have it.

$75 welder would run anything I had (6011, 6013, 7014, 7018 in 3/32” or 1/8”). I agree with you that 7014 is probably first choice and I’ll stick with that to get better

I’ll find some 1/8” 7014 to use with the AC Fornney for 1” plate of big weldments

You brought up brazing, which is what I use anytime I think I can get away with it. I did braze a couple of the cross connectors an my contraption, but then it got really cold and I couldn’t keep my #3 torch lit. And my acetylene cylinder might have been out of cert. So off to arc welding cause the weather clock was ticking

My motto is “a good braze is better than a bad weld”. And since I do mostly bad welds, I lean toward brazing. Polish stuff up, use good flux, and make a big fillet & it usually wont come apart. I’ll probably braze the lawn mower blade scrapers cause brazing is great on high carbon, spring steel, etc

 

[UncleW]

*** I’ve been focused on moving dirt around cause it’s cheap and I can do it by myself off my tractor. I’m 72yo and can’t walk all that well due to severing my sciatic nerve in a freak fall accident. So really can’t shovel much compost. Unless I can convince the county extension to include me in their experiments and send over a half dozen graduate students ***

Doesn't hurt to ask..!! Explaining your situation may help. Worst case scenario all they can say is no.

Good point! I know the ag extension folks pretty well. Sent them an email offering up my plot for experiments. “All they can say is no”!