Hay spike in need of desperate repair

[00:00:19]Welcome back to the shop. What we have here is a hayfork that is needing some repair. We're going to be doing some gouging. We're going to do some bending, some welding. We're going to get this thing tip top shape and we're going to get the customer loading hay. So, this is a pretty neat project. This is actually a hay fork that has been in a family for about three generations now.

[00:00:37]So, that's kind of neat just that we're we're trying to carry on that history.

[00:00:41]And as you can tell, this guy has been repaired uh a few times, but that is no big deal.

[00:00:48]So, what I think happened here, so we have weld that broke, weld that's going to break. Looks like it's cracked through some of it, not through all of it. Um, but this plate right here is about quarter inch plate. And as we can see, we have completely ripped through there. And then on this side, we are going to be My thoughts here is we will end up gouging this front and back.

[00:01:17]Front and back. because it's only ripped along the top parts, which makes sense because as you think about a bail being squished onto this, it wants to flex.

[00:01:28]So, what's happening is it's pulling away from the weakest point. So, what we're going to do is we're going to gouge weld, like I said, but then we're going to end up adding some uh angle pieces here, some gussets to help redistribute that load from this point to, you know, multiple points along this loading plate. Um, I would it'd be nice if I could add things to the back to stiffen this up, but with this quick attach system, you can't be adding too much to this. Otherwise, you're going to be not allowing for those that pivot to come up in here and grab and lock as it should. We're going to have to do everything on the front side, which is not a problem. We are going to get to do some plasma gouging. I love plasma gouging. When people think of gouging, they think of either carbon arc or just grabbing a good old basically grinder wheel, a hard rock and using that. But we are going to be smarter than that.

[00:02:17]We're going to use a plasma cuz I love plasmas. Those things are splendid.

[00:02:22]We're going to be able to get in here and basically just go, you know, make a whipping motion. Just Without further ado, I think we get after it and we get this bad boy repaired. What do you think?

[00:02:53]Kind of tired of trying the same [ __ ] kind of play trying to give a [ __ ] never.

[00:03:02]I've been running out of love. Yeah.

[00:03:05]Said I've been running out of love.

[00:03:08]Yeah. Said I've been running out of love. Yeah. Said I've been running out of love. Yeah.

[00:03:15]Yeah.

[00:03:22]give a [ __ ] Saving graces never hit the same. I' been running out of love. Yeah. Said I've been running out of love. Yeah. I' been running out of love. Yeah. I' been running out of love. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:41]Yeah.

[00:04:20]kind of trying to give a [ __ ] Saving gra the same. I've been running out of love. Yeah. I' been running out of love. Yeah. I' been running out of love. Yeah. I' been running out of love.

[00:04:40]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:09]The plasma is done and I think it turned out pretty slick. So, this plasma plasma plasma tip, as you can see, has a much wider nozzle than your typical cutting tip.

[00:05:23]That's because it's designed to gouge.

[00:05:25]Uh, it needs a wider arc. So, basically, you can scoop that metal out. That's what we did. We scooped the metal out.

[00:05:32]Basically, what ended up happening is I had to go all the way through on this side. That was expected um because that section was completely ripped. So, I knew that was going to happen. on the other side. I was not expecting that. I was hoping I could chase a crack, find it, and get back to base metal. Uh, I did not did the same thing. We ended up scoping that metal out of there. And, uh, yeah, it's gone. As you can see, we got we got a little bit of clean up, which ain't nothing but a thing, chicken wing. Clean that up. We'll clean that side up. Now that I've got the weld released where it broke, I'm hoping I can do some kind of ratcheting, chain binder, jack. Not entirely sure how I'm going to do it yet, but try to bend this back. I don't I should have I'm not going to lie, I should have gouged a little more, but I should have taken this all the way to the end. I can see there's a crack there. I didn't see it on the back side, which tells me two things. One, the base material on the back side of this is still good because a crack can go through. Two, it shows you that you need to always check before you turn off the generator. So, that's a fun fact about the shop is I run off a Predator 9000 watt uh generator. We were running at 30 amps on the plasma.

[00:06:48]Ideally for something like this I would love to be full crank but this is where I hope everyone in the comments tells me how wrong I am. But basically how I understand it and the arc length that the amperage is having to work across.

[00:07:04]So the longer the arc and the longer the material. So the distance from basically let's just say you're cutting you know this top material which is quarter inch.

[00:07:14]If your arc is at the top of that, your arc is working across a quarter inch for that amperage.

[00:07:22]The farther away you get, the more draw you are pulling. Old Bessie here does not like to run um when you're doing that. Decide just to turn down the amperage so that way I'm I'm counting on there to be more draw. So that way the generator doesn't lock up because that will happen. Seen it. I've heard it. All that. So, just because your generator can run 40 amps or 50 amps or whatever you're running, you got to be thinking about the potential amp draw because you'll straight up seize that motor and then you're out of power. So, you may be thinking, Jake, you got lights in the shop. You're correct. That is my power box.

[00:08:00]But, we're going to be uh addressing that with the shop edition. So, yeah, I think we're gonna just have to take a pause on this, do some thinking, do some coffee drinking because uh it is 5:50.

[00:08:14]Sunrise is starting to come up. Getting after it. I know I know how these things work. So, in an ideal world, and I'm sure I'm sure some of you in the comments are going to be like, "Oh my gosh, you should have been there. You should have took a torch blah blah blah blah blah." First, oxen shank is leaking, which sucks. Otherwise, yeah, I would have taken a rose bud and just heat the dog piss out of this thing, but that's not the option we had. Two, this is a farm repair. He's not looking for a five, $700 repair. Uh 200 bucks. Yeah, that might be that might be enticing.

[00:08:50]Well, son of a gun.

[00:08:53]I should have checked.

[00:08:55]This weld right here is actually ripped away from the material as well.

[00:09:02]That's okay. So, we can just fire.

[00:09:05]Reason why I didn't I didn't want to have I was hoping that that was going to be okay. Was this knob in the way with your gun? It's hard to get a that scooping motion. Um, so I will I'll figure it out whether I use a carbide burr. Um, I got a set from Champion Tool that I really like. But this will get flat disc, clean up all the junk, and then basically we're going to do a 6010 route on everything. get it cleaned up, wire wield it, and then run a 7018 pass on everything. So once I get all these rewelded, cleaned up, and then like I said, we're going to come back with some plate in here, basically to help transfer that load. That's one to pry away. And then I'm just going to check any welds. Uh this was all done, you know, by who knows however long ago.

[00:09:52]So anything that looks bad, we're going to gouge it, reweld it, and be ready to rock.

[00:10:03]probably thinking to yourself, "Wow, definitely a scene change." You're correct. We've moved the old hat fork outside. Mainly because last night I was working on a truck system for that guy and I already had the welder already pulled out here. And honestly, like I mentioned, since I run off a generator, uh the generator's out here, the welder's out here, everything's already out here. Just brought the piece to me off camera. We really tried bending this thing back and it just did not pan out. We are going to weld it back. Make sure we have plenty of reinforcement welds and then we're going to end up adding some gussets that go from here up to here. Cuz basically what's happening is as this there's a bail on this point and it's, you know, going through a field and all that weight outward is just prying on this one point. We're going to add some gusseting material back to it so that way it doesn't want to do that. We're gonna be running the ESOB Rustler. We're gonna be cranking that old girl here because I really want to make sure we get good penetration.

[00:11:03]Not that's going to be hard because we gouged out uh basically the entire thing. So, this I would This is going to be a full pin well for sure. So, my thoughts are the I gouged the back last.

[00:11:17]So, that material is actually it I've already kind of taken a buff buff wheel, cleaned it up, wire wheel, whatever you want to call it. And it's already clean.

[00:11:25]So, I'm going to go ahead and put the root in the back. I need to clean up the front from all the dross that was getting shot through the opening. I will once I have the root in, I'll clean the root and all that dross at the same time. And then we're just going to we're just going to fill her up, if you know what I mean. So, kind of tired of trying I don't love you. I don't love you. I don't love you. I love you.

[00:12:26]Kind of tired of trying the same [ __ ] trying to give a [ __ ] Saving gra yeah.

[00:13:27]kind of tired out of love. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:09]Heat. Heat.

[00:14:35]kind of tired of trying to give a [ __ ] grave out of Yeah. Say I' been running out of love.

[00:14:49]Yeah. Say I' been running out of love.

[00:14:52]Yeah. I' been running out of love. Yeah.

[00:14:56]Yeah.

[00:14:59]Kind of tired of trying.

[00:15:12]>> All done. Stepped inside to cool off.

[00:15:15]change a little bit and let this guy cool down because it was hot. We ended up adding half inch plate as gussets. So, those are fully welded.

[00:15:27]Man, that is actually still hot. That's crazy. Uh fully welded the cracks front and back.

[00:15:36]Did you hear that? That's my neighbor.

[00:15:38]That's train horn. Actually, that's kind of funny cuz uh that's his truck. Anyh who, funny. But yeah, so we got this thing.

[00:15:47]We added the gussets, gouged out the welds, weld it all back, and we I I didn't end up grinding any of those down cuz honestly, with the amount of force this thing is going to see, it needs to have every bit of reinforcement that it can. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying this is the right way or the only way to fix a hay fork, but either you saw something that you think is wrong and you don't want to do that, or you saw something that you think, ah, that ain't too bad.

[00:16:19]Drop a comment. Let me know if uh you do it differently. Ideally, in a perfect world, I would love to have bent it back. But for something like this, you just got to know your customer. I know that he was not going to want an expensive bill on something like this to spend the time to straighten that out.

[00:16:34]We just we just paved her up and that's that's what we got to do sometimes. I'm sure it'll still perform just the way it's supposed to. And like old Icy Isaac from Icy Weld says, it's just metal.

[00:16:47]It's going to break if it wants to break. Yeah. So guys, thanks for joining me and we'll see you on the next one.

[00:16:52]Lex scrap.