Stump shredder project

[Jim Timber]

I decided against building a hydraulic skidding winch after coming to the conclusion that the speed needed wasn't achievable with the desired force out of my hydraulics on the tractor, so I had a motor I wasn't using and decided to build a stump grinder instead. The force generated will be more than adequate for this application, even after speeding up the pumps modest 250 RPM to 1,000 RPM (where most commercial grinders run).

Got lucky at the steel yard a couple weeks ago and found a 21" round 3/4" thick they laser cut out of a plate in the fab shop - .60/lb is a whole bunch better than $1 and having to pay a cut charge and then spend an hour rounding it out of the plate. Score!

Last night I started working on the frame.

Then today I got more material and continued:

They're not visible in the pics, but I have reinforcement bars welded under the latch tabs on the bottom flange. I used 1/4" for this and the bottom flange on my fork carriage, but the forks don't really put much strain on that connection. The grinder will be fighting to get off the QA mount, so I beefed it up a bit more. I'll also be gusseting those pockets from below as well.

Dinner break, and back to it...

 

[Jim Timber]

Getting ready for the cylinder and arm mounting once it cools down again. All the seams are welded now.

 

[bat man]

Would skip a habitat day next winter to learn how to weld, torch cut etc etc.

 

[Jim Timber]

Take a class at a tech college. $450 bucks gives you a semester's access to tens of thousands of dollars in machines and someone who's paid to teach you how to use them. ;) You can audit the class if you don't want to mess up your transcripts and then it won't matter if you're doing the assignments or building ladder stands.

I have a little wire feed machine up North. Saturday afternoon if it's not raining I can give you a crash course if you bring some metal.

 

[tooln]

Welding is an art.

Jim I know you do a lot of MIG do you also TIG?

 

[Jim Timber]

You got that backwards. I do a lot of TIG and a bit of MIG. ;) I love tigging. I find it zenful. MIG is an expedient way to put weld down. Even on this project I'll tig tack everything and then go back over and seam weld it with mig. I go through a lot more argon than c25, I'll tell you that...

 

[biglakeba$$]

I need to take a course in Greek, cuz I have no clue what you are speaking about......

 

[Jim Timber]

TIG is Tungsten Inert Gas welding: You have a tungsten electrode that passes the current across an arc to the work metal, and you add filler to the resulting puddle to create your weld (or you can just melt the two base pieces together, but usually you want some filler for several reasons).

MIG is Metal Inert Gas welding: You have a metal wire which carries the current to the work piece and also fills in the puddle as you go along.

You can also have FCAW or Flux Core Arc Welding: which is different from MIG in that you have a consumable filler material in your electrode (it's a hollow tube instead of solid like with MIG) and this can be used without shielding gas in some cases, and in others they do funky stuff with the core of the wire to make it super hot or have other characteristics, but for most people when they say flux core they're talking about a wire feeder without shielding gas.

 

[tooln]

Sorry about that for some reason I thought you did more MIG. Myself being in the food industry it's TIG & a lot of purge welding. SS & aluminum are my forte. Me and the group leader from 1st are always messing with each other. We'll see who can weld pop cans together the best.

 

[tooln]

I need to take a course in Greek, cuz I have no clue what you are speaking about......

There so much more that we could confuse you with but we'll let it slide for now.

 

[Jim Timber]

I'm doing a lot more MIG lately for economy of production, but my heart pumps via the foot amptrol. :) I have to stop myself from seam filling with TIG when I'm only stitching it to keep it from wiggling when the MIG comes on.

I've been back dragging a lot on this one to keep the puddle hot without going to high deposition rates with the feed rate to get the amps up. With my Invision 354MP I can put down enough watts with .035 to burn through 1/2". That machine is a monster. It won't spray on c25, but it pours in globular on the bleeding edge. I need to practice up on my out of position MIG for when I build the deck for my straight truck later this summer (I hope). I've never hit the duty cycle, but I've burned my left hand through the gloves more than once from the radiant heat of the puddle.

It's been a long time since I tried welding pop cans. I've gotten a lot better with puddle control in the last couple years. It's kind of funny; as my nerve function has declined, my TIG quality has improved. Not being as jittery probably has a lot to do with it. Or maybe I'm just more focused and have more experience. :)

 

[tooln]

I like using real thin gloves to give a better feel for the torch. I'm guessing you have a TIG Finger, if not I'd strongly suggest one.
http://www.amazon.com/Welding-Tips-Tricks-Finger-Shield/dp/B00GYHT8PG
Those thing are worth their weight on gold, I only wish I had one 20 years ago.
I also wish my eyes were as good as 20 years ago. I have to wear my readers now for welding.
Do you walk the cup when tigging?
Our biggest baddest machine at work is a Sincrowave 351. I'm almost lost without a foot or thumb control. Machines like this can almost make anyone a welder.

 

[wiscwhip]

I would much rather weld SS with a TIG than just about anything else. Clean, no smoke, no sparks, gravy train for those of us who have been trained in this art form. Stick, MIG and Flux Core however are hot, sparky, dirty, and generally not at all as much fun as TIG welding. I used to love vertical up spray arc on aluminum frame extrusions though, probably my favorite type of MIG welding. Spent the first 19 years of my working career welding in the dairy tank industry with mostly TIG on light gauge SS(7 ga down to 24 ga) and aluminum and MIG on aluminum. Then went to mostly flux core on carbon steel, mindless compared to TIG. I am still convinced that I could teach one of those little monkeys to run flux core. BTW, we weld all our flux core on carbon steel with CO2 gas over flux core. My favorite welder we have where I work now is a Fronius TransPuls Synergic 5000, that we have set up to pulse weld on heavy aluminum. High frequency MIG that uses Argon for the shielding gas, so no black weld smut around the weld, beautiful TIG-like weld quality, and it can handle 1/2" aluminum plate welding no problem. Pretty cool machine when you get it dialed in.

 

[biglakeba$$]

Interesting stuff. My experience with welding was standing in my grandpas garage and him telling me not to look. :)

 

[Catscratch]

Your welds look great and I love your shop. Having spent some time working in a machine shop I've seen a lot of work done, and your's looks great. What is your normal product?

 

[Jim Timber]

I'm the owner, inventor, machinist, and janitor of Simple Threaded Devices. :) https://www.facebook.com/SimpleThreadedDevices

I got a barely used Syncrowave 250DX off CL back in '06 to upgrade from my Hobart tigmate 160 that I taught myself tig on for about 2 years. The inverter tigs that are out now are sweet if you do a lot of alloy or sheetmetal, but I got the pulser module and that's good enough for me when I need to do anything funky. I love the arc quality on that transformer and don't really have any reason to upgrade it.

Thanks Catscratch! I built the shop from the slab up (contracted the concrete) and did everything with minimal help but raising the walls (we had a wall raising party). It's a horrible mess, and I just keep on going instead of getting serious about cleaning it up, but that's one of my happy places - the other is in the bush.

I don't have a tig finger, and I wear tillman tig gloves for feel. I free hand the tungsten because I just don't like the drag of the cup on the work for some reason. I hold a really tight arc and can do it without dipping in the puddle (that took a lot of practice), but it's all from resting my hand on the work.

 

[foggy]

Your welds look great and I love your shop. Having spent some time working in a machine shop I've seen a lot of work done, and your's looks great. What is your normal product?

Reminds me of a time we couldn't find the welding helmet and had a project to do. So.....I just would strike an arc and weld briefly with my eyes closed.....and I did a number of stitches this way to finish the project (a kids slide). One of the dumbest things I ever did. Burned my eyes badly. Painful experience for sure.

 

[buckvelvet]

Being a guy that adamantly admits that I have no building skills, I admire this kind of stuff. Cant wait to see a video of it running.

 

[foggy]

Being a guy that adamantly admits that I have no building skills, I admire this kind of stuff. Cant wait to see a video of it running.

I am withholding my comments on this project. I do not want to be a nay-sayer.....and I certainly don't want to say "I told you so" either. Still....I gotta be showed. Sincerely: Good luck Jim!

 

[wiscwhip]

I was never terribly impressed with the whole "walking the cup" method myself. I, like Jim, always seemed to make just as good of a weld by having some body part resting on the work or some other conveniently located support. Didn't much matter what body part was resting on it. I have done a ton of out of position welding over the years and it could have been just about anything from my wrist, the back of my hand, forearm, elbow, upper arm, or even just leaning on something with my shoulder.

All our welds that touch product(tooln knows what I'm talking about) were ground and polished to a #4 Dairy Finish, by other guys than the ones doing the welding. So the moral of the story is, you had better make a weld that you wouldn't mind grinding and polishing yourself if you are going to make someone else do that work for you or you will end up with some very, very p!$$ed-off co-workers!:eek: