Good Beginner Project - Build Up Your Snow Plow Shoes

[Gordon Gould]

Practice, experiment, or just burn some rods and end up with a useful chunk of steel instead of junk. If it doesn't come out perfect don't worry. No one will see and it will be all ground off by next spring.

I am doing my Fisher shoes. Used 6011 to welded on some 1/2" pieces from the scrap bucket.



Filled the spaces and build up the edges with 6013 then ground it flat.



Interwove a couple layers of 7018AC on top.



New and old. You can see I could be a lot steadier at hand and my eyes aren't overly sharp.



My wife came by. She said what on earth are you doing? That is a lot uglier than the stuff you usually make

gg

 

[Al 2]

I've resurfaced a few plow shoes by welding on some pieces of leaf springs or a piece of a cutting edge from a grader blade.
Al

 

[CalG]

I put about 1/2 pound of 6000 series filler on to the shoes of the snow blower about a month ago.

They need a few hundred yards of rubbing over gravel before I'll show 'em off though ;-)

 

[TMGT]

I have a bunch of Ar400 so I just use that on plow shoes, hold up very well.

Ever thought of hard facing rod for the shoes?

 

[Gordon Gould]

Those are good ideas. Hard facing and cutting edge pieces are good abrasive resistant things to use for this purpose without a doubt. But what the heck, we're just trying to do some useful welding here - for the fun of it and the practice. I don't need those shoes to last forever but I will get several years out of them.

On a side note - I have looked into hard facing. Relatively expensive compared to the cost of new shoes. I would buy a new set of shoes first.

gg

 

[CincyFlyer]

I have a bunch of Ar400 so I just use that on plow shoes, hold up very well.

Ever thought of hard facing rod for the shoes?

Depending on what you get, that stuff can be very expensive! Some of it can run close to $100/lb. I used to use a variety of Stellite for parts that needed to be abrasion resistant (and have actually faced and tipped engine valves with the stuff.) I probably have five pounds left, which I'll use up on some critical job (not a lot of snow moving in the Cincinnati area, I even got rid of my blower.) Whether it's worth is depends on how much of a pain it is to remove those shoes; if a weld job lasts all year, I'd keep going with the cheap stuff!

 

[xryan]

The only thing plow shoes are good for is if you have a gravel/dirt drive that's not yet frozen. Otherwise the 99.995% of plowing, shoes are just for door stops in the shop or an anchor for the canoe.

 

[Gordon Gould]

The only thing plow shoes are good for is if you have a gravel/dirt drive that's not yet frozen. Otherwise the 99.995% of plowing, shoes are just for door stops in the shop or an anchor for the canoe.

You are right except maybe your 99.995% number is a way high. For me anyway. Where we live almost all the roads and drives are gravel. We only have one asphalt road in our entire town. It snows a lot before the roads freeze and again after they thaw. I run shoes all season long as do all the town trucks. I would much rather wear down an easy to fix or replace pair of shoes instead of my cutting edge or edge trip spring brackets. If the shoes weren't there it would be those other parts wearing away.

Just as an example this is our road. It is a mile long. You might call it a trail.



gg

 

[crazyal]

How well do the shoes keep the blade from digging in. I don't plow often (the truck isn't even running right at the moment so i never lowed last winter) and my plow doesn't have any shoes so I just go slow and I'm always adjusting the height. It's a 10' plow so I wasn't even sure if shoes would help because of the drive is only about 10' wide so the center hump would probably be an issue. But I would love to here what you've found out over the years.

 

[oosik]

Those "new" shoes look like they will be very useful. My biggest problem here is just waiting to plow snow until the gravel driveway freezes up hard. I get anxious and then some gravel will end up on the sides of the driveway. Falling snow makes me excited.

 

[Fallon]

Those "new" shoes look like they will be very useful. My biggest problem here is just waiting to plow snow until the gravel driveway freezes up hard. I get anxious and then some gravel will end up on the sides of the driveway. Falling snow makes me excited.

Moot point here in Colorado. Last Sunday had a high of 77. Sunday night & Monday had a high of 24 & we got 5" of snow. 65 the next day & mid 70s the rest of the week. Welcome to Colorado. Got 4-5" of snow on the deck, but the driveway never turned white because of all the latent heat. That type of crap happens all winter long around here so you can never trust the ground to be frozen when you need to plow.

 

[Gordon Gould]

How well do the shoes keep the blade from digging in.

If the surface is not frozen it depends on it's consistency. If the gravel is firm the shoes float the blade well. ( I can adjust the shoe height too ) The problem is during the spring mud season when the road bed is still frozen below the surface so there is no drainage but the top 2 inches or so are a soft muddy slurry. Then the shoes just dig into the mud.

On a rough road I start the plow season with the shoes low to hold the edge up so it will ride over the rocks and leave a thin layer of snow on the road. As the thin layers of snow get packed the road becomes flat and smooth and I raise the shoes to let the edge run on or just above the packed surface.

gg

 

[dragoneggs]

Moot point here in Colorado. Last Sunday had a high of 77. Sunday night & Monday had a high of 24 & we got 5" of snow. 65 the next day & mid 70s the rest of the week. Welcome to Colorado. Got 4-5" of snow on the deck, but the driveway never turned white because of all the latent heat. That type of crap happens all winter long around here so you can never trust the ground to be frozen when you need to plow.

Got to love Colorado weather... I learned long ago that to bring shorts and warm coat on the same two day business trip.

 

[Fallon]

Got to love Colorado weather... I learned long ago that to bring shorts and warm coat on the same two day business trip.

High of 80 today... 1" of snow forecast for tomorrow...

 

[Gordon Gould]

How well do the shoes keep the blade from digging in. .

I thought today would be a good day to dredge up this year old thread so you could see why I use plow shoes. We got 10" of heavy wet snow. It stopped snowing shortly after noon time. This is the first time I plowed this season. Our gravel road is not frozen and we have had a lot of rain lately. The plow shoes saved me from tearing things up and making a mess. Turned up some leaves here and there is all. One ton Ram 3500 with a 9' Fisher.





This is what those shoes I built up last year look like now after one plow season.



gg