Hardface tiller tines?

May 19, 2014 4 Replies

Since my Troy-Bilt tiller is of course being used to till dirt the tines don't stay real sharp for long. I thought about hardfacing the cutting edges of the tines but the tines are of course some type of hardened steel. Anybody know if the tines can be hardfaced? Thanks, Eric


snipped-for-privacy@whidbey.com fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Most anything can be hardfaced, but you have to be careful of where the wear patterns are. If you hardface (say) only a couple of inches down near the ends, the tines may wear through above the hardfacing.

Will you draw some temper out of the tines? Yes. How far and how badly depends on your welding technique, and whether or not you quench them at the right time.

Lloyd

I have not done what you asked about. I would say it would be a case of trial and error. The mass that you are welding to is very small considering the mass of most things that are hardfaced. It might weaken the whole tine enough to make if bend easier. As suggested, pretreat and posttreat criteria may be the deciding factor.

Steve

IIRC my dad had the tines on his old MerryTiller hardfaced back in the sixties - stellite? He did a lot of tilling and the original tines wore out in about 2 years - the coated (tipped) ones lasted a lot longer

Back when Troy-Bilt was in Troy they offered hard faced tines for the larger models. Being that I was in there a lot hauling parts I asked about some of the "upgrades" they did to products. Those tines were one of them (have an old Horse model myself). The procedure they used was simple. They stamped the regular tines in house. They stamped the hard faced ones from the same steel but with a different part number. They were sent over to the fab shop where one machine did the work. It was a "robotic" MIG running Lincore wire. The weld went from the top of the bevel around the curve. Then they would drop onto a table and knock off any slag. Then a quick swipe with a grinder to level them and a bath in the paint tank.

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