hardfacing

[brain55]

I'm looking at doing a job hardfacing the sides of an 8' trencher wheel. I will be doing it with my wirefeed and likely .045" flux core wire. I'm pretty sure I'm going to remove the individual sections and welding flat rather than trying to do it horizontal on the machine. I'm just not that confident in my out of position welding and think it will be faster in the long run.

Any experience or thoughts you have to share since I haven't done this before would be great.

 

[mjncad]

I thought you had to use a stick welder and a certain rod type to hard-face edges.

 

[mrmikey]

I thought you had to use a stick welder and a certain rod type to hard-face edges.

There is wire made for hardfacing but for a one shot deal stick is the answer. Running beads with regular wire will build up the worn areas but it's not abrasion resistant any more so than the origonal......Mike

 

[Shield Arc]

I've seen some real knock down drag out fights over hard facing equipment. Everybody has an opinion on which manufacture, type, and pattern to run. There are so many variables to this it's mind boggling! Type of soil, angle of blade / bucket, is it an impact application? Etc, etc, etc. One thing is for sure, you are going to spend some money, I've seen hard facing range from $9.00 a pound to $30.00 a pound.

I've never run hard facing wire, one time I was all set up, and ready to pull the trigger to hard face a clam shell bucket, (wasn't looking forward to it at all) but got pulled off to do something else, never went back.

Hardfacing Products | Lincoln Electric

 

[yomax4]

Hardfacing is all about alloy. Inexpensive wire is lower in alloy than expensive wire. Check out the Stoody website. They will offer the most info and can be very affordable. Or call 1 800 426-1888 option 2 then option 3 and you will get a tech who would ebjoy talking about the job at hand.

 

[brain55]

The hardfacing wire I'm going to use is $13/lb and I expect to use at least 10 lbs, and it only comes in 25 lb spools. According to my math there is over 100 ft. of bead. I realize hardfacing was done for a long time with stick, but I can't imagine doing that big of a job that way, especially since I have high quality wirefeed equipment. Buying a new liner and drive rollers is no big deal, and I'm sure if I have left over wire, and the experience of doing the job, I will find other customers that will need some hardfacing done too.

 

[brain55]

Oh, and fortunately my local welding shop has the history of what has been used on this machine before and what the local trencher dealer uses, so it does take the guess work out of the equation.

 

[Sublifer]

Like others, I had never heard of wirefed hardfacing. Let us know how it goes and take some pictures if you can!

 

[brain55]

We will see if I get the job. Their mechanic told me what they had been paying, so I adjusted my estimate to beat that. I'm still going to make a fair profit even considering the cost of the excess consumables. The experience is worth the reduction in price from what I would have charged normally.

 

[monckywrench]

Do share the details on which wire you use and the results!