Wear Bar Added to Snow Blower Skid

[Don52]

My friend Ray lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where they get a lot of snow. He wore out the skids on his snow blower attachment to his Kubota tractor in one season. He sent me new skids and some ¼” x 3” stock. I welded the bars on the skids to extend their life. In the first picture you can see that the heel of the skid is worn almost all the way through. You will also notice that the wear wasn’t even indicating that the shoe wasn’t parallel to the ground.

1. Worn Skid


The process that I used was:
-I cut the ¼’ x 3” to about 10-1/2” long.
-I scribed the corner radius on the plate and cut it out on my band saw.
-I cleaned up the radius on my belt sander.
-I TIG welded the wear plate to the skid in four places. I used TIG because it was all set up.
-I clamped the skid in the vise and heated the wear bar in the area shown below with an oxyacetylene torch with a rosebud tip.

2. Heat bending wear bar


Next, I beat on the wear bar with a hammer to fit it to the skid. I decided to use the heat and beat method instead of my arbor press, because I was concerned with the bend exactly matching the existing skid. Then I MIG welded the wear bar to the skid as shown below.

3. Wear Bar Welded


Here are both skids welded.

4. Two Skis Welded


Here they are primed and painted

5. Skids primed and painted

[Don52]

Here they are installed on the snowblower.

6. Skids installed on snowblower


On my own 1983 Simplicity tractor I am still using the skid that came with it. I just weld additional wear bars on the bottom. After about four wear bars I cut them off and start over. Below is a picture of my wear bar on my tractor.

7. Simplicity skid


-Don

[ryanjones2150]

Any particular steel you’re using as the wear plate?

[Don52]

I just used mild steel for this one. I have never looked into using AR steel. In the Welding Web forum several members suggested welding a layer of Stoody 35 hardcoat on the wear surface. I couldn’t find a one pound box of stick rods of this product on line and a 10 lb box cost $170.

-Don

[ryanjones2150]

Ya, they don’t give that hard facing rod away. Next time you do yours, give a shout, if I have some hardfacing rod on hand, I’d be happy to send you a pound or so to make your repair.

[Don52]

Ya, they don’t give that hard facing rod away. Next time you do yours, give a shout, if I have some hard facing rods on hand, I’d be happy to send you a pound or so to make your repair.

Thanks, I will be in Sugarland near Houston Texas next week, so I will try to rendezvous with you if possible. Beaumont isn't that far, from Sugarland.
What type of Hard Facing rods do you recommend for this application.

-Don

[ryanjones2150]

Heck ya man, we can link up. Sugarland is on the southwest side of Houston, that’s about 100 miles. I used drive there and back once a week to play beer league hockey.

[Don52]

Ya, they don’t give that hard facing rod away. Next time you do yours, give a shout, if I have some hardfacing rod on hand, I’d be happy to send you a pound or so to make your repair.

My friend and customer was back in town for Thanksgiving, so I asked him to bring back the skids, so I could try out the hardfacing rods that you sent to me. The original skid was worn out in one season. We will see how long the hardface skids last. The new skid had more surface area than the original as shown below.

8. New and old skid

9. Hardfacing on skid

-Don

[ryanjones2150]

That’s about as real of a test as you can get.

[Don52]

That’s about as real of a test as you can get.

The upper peninsula of Michigan, where my friend and customer lives, gets a lot of snow, so the skids will get a good workout. Thanks for all of your help.

-Don

[Don52]

So far the skid is working well. the larger area doesn't dig into the dirt portion of driveway and the hardface doesn't gouge the asphalt part of the driveway.

10. Trying out skids

[ryanjones2150]

Looks cold.

[Don52]

Ray took off the skids for inspection.

Now that I know where the skids wear, I can apply a continuous pad of hardface where it will do the most good. The wear hasn’t reached the base metal of the skids yet. Ray said that due to the larger size of the skids, he can’t tip the skids any more to better equalize the wear.

-Don

[Don52]

I bought 10# of hardface rods that are 5 points harder on the Rc scale so they should wear even slower.

-Don

[ryanjones2150]

That stuff ain’t cheap.