When you don't have all those fancy tools

[wroughtn_harv]

You can still make things.

Earlier this year I had a friend ask me to make him another one of these. His had been borrowed and then lost by the friend that borrowed it.

This one is mine. It's moved over a thousand cubic yards of concrete over the years. It's great for filling post holes, grouting walls, and moving concrete back where you can't get a redimix truck and it's a lot cheaper than a pump.

 

[MarkV]

Harv is this the project that you will be building in the Miller contest?

MarkV

 

[wroughtn_harv]

When I did the project I thought of my friends on TBN who look at what some of us build and know in their heart that if they had our tools they could do it too.

I've got some news for them. Sometimes you can do some pretty neat stuff and not have the cutting torch, the plasma cutter, etc.

For this job I used my mig but I could have done it with a stick welder. An a/c stick welder like an old Miller Thunderbolt or Lincoln tombstone would have done fine.

I started off with one sheet 4' X 8' sheet of three sixteenths plate and a couple of sticks of quarter inch bar stock. I picked up a Freud Steel Demon 7 1/4" circular saw blade from Home Depot for $39.99 plus tax. I did all the cuts with the steel cutting blade using my DeWalt worm drive framing saw.

I had my bucket for a pattern and only one sheet of plate. I laid it out with soapstone and then started cutting.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Harv is this the project that you will be building in the Miller contest?

MarkV

Shhhhhh! This is the project that I submitted that got me awarded a finalist. Don't tell anyone, okay?

 

[wroughtn_harv]

They make circular saws for using these steel cutting blades. I don't have one. The downside of using a regular saw is the chips. They're sparks with teeth and attitude. They not only bite when they hit, they burn too. So when you buy one of these blades keep in mind you also need to have good safety glasses, a cap, unless of course the odor of your own hair burning doesn't bother you much, and a long sleeved shirt. You've also got to keep in mind that if you walk into the house without dusting off real good your butt and that nice wood floor are going to hurt real bad when mama sees the damage.

I love the blades. If you have a good saw they are magic for cutting pipe, angle, and tubing. If you baby them, by babying I mean go easy, they will dull up and you're out a blade. But if you work them they will make a surprising number of cuts. And whatever you do don't try to do shaving with them on a piece like you would a grinder. They're made for cutting and if you try to trim off what can happen is you put an edge on the carbide and then you have a blade that doesn't want to cut straight. Work the blade, grit your teeth and cowboy up when a chip has went through the dermis and is burning the heck out of epi, and you'll do fine.

I love the fact that you can do plunge cuts, check out the middle photo.

 

[1grnlwn]

That saw is just a strange concept for me to wrap my walnut sized brain around. No coolant? Do you have to wear like 3 pairs safety glasses and a mouth guard?:licking: Do you have to feed really slow? Does it try to kick back like a grinding wheel?

 

[wroughtn_harv]

As you can tell by the pictures I didn't have much of the sheet of three sixteenths left over. In fact on the chute I had to weld some pieces together.

The spacing on the quick attach are simple. I had the old bucket for a pattern and I had the TC40 quick attach to verify. If you're nervous about laying it out use some carboard for templates and then tack up your pieces. Try it and them either weld it up or make the modifications it takes to make it work.

Notice a couple of things that I've incorporated into this design if you're wanting to make one like it. The first of course is where I'm making the bucket big. That's as close to the quick attach as I can. The bucket will hold a ton of wet concrete. You want as much of that weight as possible as close to the tractor as you can get. Tipping will make the heart beat faster. On a CUT you also can get the lower end of your body acting up when it happens too.

Another thing to keep in mind is the splash guards. You need them. Also you want everything angled towards the chute so you don't have any corners that will hold concrete when pouring. Even though the outside of my bucket looks like heck the inside is clean. That's because concrete likes concrete almost as much as it likes your wife's floor. Old concrete in a bucket will cause a bunch of new concrete to congegrate and you'll be dumping half of a load in no time at all.

I posted it here under welding instead of build it yourself because it is a welding project.

I entered this project in the Miller Challenge. It is a finalist in the one day or simple project category. The finalist prize is a round trip all expenses paid to the Miller offices in Appleton Wisconsin, an electronic welding hood with jacket, gloves, bag, etc. and a pretty trick welding table. I will compete with one other finalist for the choice of a new either a new tig, mig, or plasma machine from Miller. They will provide the materials, tools, and project. To say I'm nervous would be an understatement.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

That saw is just a strange concept for me to wrap my walnut sized brain around. No coolant? Do you have to wear like 3 pairs safety glasses and a mouth guard?:licking: Do you have to feed really slow? Does it try to kick back like a grinding wheel?

Kickback comes from not having enough power when the cut binds. On long cuts like I've done here you will get bind and then spread if you have everything supported. If you don't have it supported then you can get some bind that will freeze up the blade big time.

I love my DeWalts, I have four of them. Once upon a time a place called Payless Cashways went out of business. I got the DeWalts for about half price and haven't looked back. When I got the first DeWalt I gave my son the best Milwaukee circular saw I had. It was a good one but it didn't even qualify to be a bridesmaid compared to the DeWalt. They have a ton of torque. It almost qualifies as a passing gear. Just about the time any other saw would be stopping it seems to grab another gear and takes off.

The chips are vicious. If you're going to use an open saw like mine you just have to cowboy up when they get inside a glove or down your collar. Unless of course you want to entertain your neighbors by screaming and dancing like a girl when it happens. It will happen. Like I pointed out earlier, they will stick to your clothes and then fall off inside the house. You will get into serious trouble because they're still sharp and they will do damage.

I did a repair on a boat trailer the other day. The old boy knew a lot more than I did. Normally I would have walked off but I was already set up when he started explaining to me exactly what to do and how to do it. I ignored him and pulled out the DeWalt instead of the cutting torch. His curiosity shut him up and when he saw what I was doing and how nice it was going he shut up and let me be. I got a nice tip on the job too. Made me regret being such an arrogant butt on some jobs where I had walked off from the minute a know it all started up.

You can buy some blades that are made for cutting half and three quarter inch stuff. The cut looks like you did it with an end mill. The best way to ruin those blades is to cut thin stuff. But it is cool to ignore the torch or plasma and make a cut with a skill saw on three quarter inch plate that is finished after the cut.

For cutting pipe, angle, and tubing I do it the same way most of the time like I would cut framing lumber. I use my knee to support the material being cut and allow the weight of the saw to push it through the cut.

 

[brain55]

Made me regret being such an arrogant butt on some jobs where I had walked off from the minute a know it all started up

I haven't left, but I have told some that I would be in my trailer polishing tools, and as soon as they were done telling me how to do my job I would get started. I don't understand hiring someone to do a job that you don't have the skill or tools to do, and then trying to tell them how to do it.

Nice job by the way. I love fabricating, but send to much time admiring my work as I go, which makes it very difficult for it to be profitable other than small jobs. I'll have to stick to fixing broken tractors, which I'm much better and faster at anyway.

Brian

PS. Good luck in the contest.

 

[1grnlwn]

HaHa I thought you were going to say when he was hovering you sprayed him with hot chips.