Thumb repair

[MMW]

Customer sent me this pic. Heading out today to fix it. How do you not notice this until it's this bent?

[Old Skool]

Careless operator? Looks like the sacrificial plate & stitch welds did their job & saved the stick though.

[Texas113]

Thumb repair

Any photos of the repair yet?

[MMW]

Here ya go. It was more difficult than I thought to get it straight & flat. Got it back & fully welded it as I always do. I know it is usually recommended it be stitched but I have repaired a bunch of thumbs that have been torn off.

I had to slice the rib to get it to bend back & also slice the plate itself to align it as it stretched on one side more than the other. The red primed tube is my port-a-power pushing it down using the bucket to push against.

[MMW]

Here is the same machine about a week earlier. They tore a boss off the one side of the thumb. At that time I didn't see any cracks on the plate to stick welds. This customer is hard on machines.

[JSFAB]

MMW:

Most of the thumbs I work on are hydraulic thumbs, and we normally add bypasses set very low between the cylinder and the valve, as the bucket curls, it will push the thumb back without doing any structural damage.

All the thumb is supposed to do in this case, is simply keep the long stuff from falling off.

I see a fixed thumb in the pictures you posted. The damage is 100% operator error, unless he was saving somebody's life, he should be fired.