TIG and 309L ?

My experience with welding steel with stainless rod is that the stainless tends to absorb carbon from the parent metal and sometimes gets awful hard. I had a welder friend weld up a crack in a cast iron engine head and the weld beads were so hard that it took the end off a high speed end mill. Ultimately I had to reface the head with a surface grinder.

I think your gussets will help more than anything else.

Pete Keillor

I would use fresh 7018. It has good elongation properties and I think that would be a good thing for what you are trying to repair...

"No" to welding the spear to the mounting -- if like any we've got had/ever seen it (the spear) should be threaded on the rear in a near friction-fit housing. They're hardened and never even tried to weld the spear itself--can't think you'll have much luck there.

If you weld it to the frame then really stuck (so to speak :) ) about just replacing it...

Unless, of course, this is a smaller unit for the little round bales instead of the large ones and is from Northern Tool or HF or somesuch instead of a "real" equipment supplier in which case may as well just build a new one on top of the existing mounting brackets, probably...

On 12-Oct-17 8:08 AM, dpb wrote: ...

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Start with rebuilding it with replacement sleeve/spears...they're readily available and not particularly expensive.

Definitely run rod. DCEP weld if possible, 6010 would be OK, but 7018 is stronger (if you are breaking the weld this could be important)

7018 is easier to run than 6010/6011 too and is low hydrogen - so less chance of a brittle weld (if the rod was properly stored, anyway)

that mounts to the bucket mount points . That spear is not hardened steel but I don't know what it is . It's being stuck together with the

7018 I have on hand . If I run out I'll buy more ... I started with some 6013 , beads looked like crap . The 7018 looks better , but not much . Some days I wish I had a 300 amp MIG machine ... others I wish I had a new Harley . Chances of either happenin' is about even . Somewhere between zip and zero .

How about welding a heavy wall DOM tube into the mount as a "socket" for the stinger and just weld the end of the stinger to the end of the socket, with the DOM tube supporting it with no HAZ in the stressed area????. Gusset the DOM tube any way you can - with no weld heat compromising the stinger??

On 12-Oct-17 3:45 PM, Terry Coombs wrote: ...

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I hear ya' on the latter; all I've got is Dad's old (it's Marquette which is a klew ;) ) stick and I'm g-awful at best...I see HF has one of their wire w/ MIG attachments on sale for pretty doggone cheap -- I've thought last two days of driving to Garden and looking but didn't do it...

How big of bales and bales of what? With big ones here and hauling w/ flatbed semis I'm awful nervous about spear breaking just when I wouldn't want it to do so...a lot bad can happen in a hurry that way...just toting a small one around the lot is pretty much ok, it isn't nothing but a nuisance most likely...

and 4 feet "long" . Just a guesstimate from my hay haulin' days of youth I'd say the weight is well under a thousand pounds . That spear is 2" in diameter and will be welded at the butt and again at 3" , and there will

a baby MIG too - it just ain't got the ass for 1/2" plate . Got a 250 amp TIG welder too , but that ain't happening . By the time I finish this I may even be able to make a bead that doesn't look like a string of pigeon droppings . I've never been all that good with stick , probably because I do it so seldom .

Too bad your little lincoln isn't the DC model - then at least it would look a bit more like goose poop.. . . .

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That should be "stout enough" for those, then... ours are 6' D and a

5'W; grass weight about 12-1300 while silage can be 2000 or a little more. It's losing one of them in the air I worry over; even tho the only time I ever actually broke a spear was while "gathering up" and found a gopher hole and one snapped clean right at the base of the socket.

I've seen guys get in a hurry and catch a point in the ground or try to move something other than hay that's too heavy and bend one a little...then they never last long after straighten having once been strained that way...

I have a good welding inductor in the cupboard in my garage that I've had for years - came with the aircraft generator I used as the motor on my electic Fiat "Electra-Mobile" (to use the generator as a welder) Too bad the darn thing's so heavy - shipping it would cost more than it's worth.

Some days I wish I had a 300 amp MIG machine ... others I wish I had a new Harley . Chances of either happenin' is about even . Somewhere between zip and zero .

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Similar here, but what I'd really like is my old 97FLHT back or a 350P pulse mig.

thing I hadn't rebuilt or replaced was the bottom end - and I was getting ready to stroke it . Current is a 90 FLHTCU , soon to be back on the road after some major rehab (trans and top end) work .