Repairing cracked weld excavator blade

sandfs · Oct 1, 2018

liberty2701 said:
Could I just purchase a 1/2" snow plow blade which I believe are very hard and weld it on? They seem readily available here. Based on my pictures above, how far below should I drop the new blade below the old? Would stitch welding suffice or weld a full bead along the whole blade?

Yes, a replacement blade would be one of the several grades/types of 'abrasion resistant' steels made just for the purpose you want to use it for.

nyone · Oct 7, 2018

Believe it or not i bet that blade wasnt much taller when it was new. Excavator baldes didnt have a huge cutting area.

Could that crack you see be the edge metal meeting the blade?

I would renenforce the corners, weld the crack on the bottom and but some beads on the cutting edge to act as hardfacing.

liberty2701 · Oct 7, 2018

nyone said:
Believe it or not i bet that blade wasnt much taller when it was new. Excavator baldes didnt have a huge cutting area.

Could that crack you see be the edge metal meeting the blade?

I would renenforce the corners, weld the crack on the bottom and but some beads on the cutting edge to act as hardfacing.

I tried searching around to see a new one. What I have seen looks to like what you said. I also thought about rather than adding on a new blade just add some hard facing to the front and the bottom of the blade. What about this idea?

nyone · Oct 7, 2018

I added "hardfacing" on the corners and along both the edge and blade on mine. The corners and sides got some welds too.

Theres many ways to do hardfacing but what i gathered from it you want to weld beads perpendicular to the movement of the blade. The idea is this will trap dirt and we dont care if dirt wears out. In this case you want the beads horizontal.

Egon · Oct 8, 2018

Different uses may have different hardfacing patterns.

[video]https://www.hobartbrothers.com/news/149/523[/video]

liberty2701 · Oct 17, 2018

I decided to add a new edge over the old. I used 1/2 mild steel than hard faced over it (front and bottom). I dropped it 1" below the old blade. The piece of steel was $15. I welded it to the old blade using 7018 rod. Lets see how it hold up.