Strange Blade

[chim]

Made some headway today. Some weather forecasts say snow is coming so having parts scattered in the yard isn't good. As mentioned in a previous post, the utility trailer has been designated as storage/workbench for the blade refurb. (Not happy with the Ford's hitch but that'll be another story).

First thing was to get the pieces gathered and loaded. The blade itself weighs a lot more than I can toss on the trailer. Since the Kubota is tied up with the snow plow, it was an opportunity to try the winch mount. A couple years ago when the utility trailer was freshened up I added provisions for a small HF winch. It's just a pair of steel flat bars that stick up so a pin goes through what would be the pin hole when it's in a 2" receiver. The winch plate sits one post that aligns the cable with the space between the lower boards. Rigged face-down with the sling under it made the blade almost load itself. For a one-man operation like this the wireless remote worked well. When the blade got right to the trailer I did slip a scrap of PVC T&G under it to help it slip over the edge.

 

[chim]

After loading, the trailer was taken closer to the tools. Where pins went though hollow steel parts they were sleeved. Seemed like a good idea, but most were in poor condition. The first two pictures are of the lower part of the piece I started working on in Post #11. The larger sleeved hole on the right was in decent shape. It's where the "stem" of the blade passes through. The smaller hole to the left is for the pin for the tilt adjustment. Its sleeve was in poor condition. I rigged the mag drill to cut the old sleeve out.




Then I moved on to the frame that holds the blade itself. That was a chance to use the old Milwaukee die grinder. It made short work out of cleaning up the two bottom holes. Large one is for the shaft/axle the blade rotates on and the smaller hole is for the rotation pin. You can see how "wallered out" the bottom pin hole is even tough it has a sleeve. The sleeve was pretty much gone on the bottom end. This blade must have had a hard life.



The mag drill was used again to cut the top of the sleeve loose. It's magnet has it stuck onto a piece of 1/2" steel plate that is clamped in place with a big C-clamp and short bar clamp that are on the other side of the drill.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

After loading, the trailer was taken closer to the tools. Where pins went though hollow steel parts they were sleeved. Seemed like a good idea, but most were in poor condition. The first two pictures are of the lower part of the piece I started working on in Post #11. The larger sleeved hole on the right was in decent shape. It's where the "stem" of the blade passes through. The smaller hole to the left is for the pin for the tilt adjustment. Its sleeve was in poor condition. I rigged the mag drill to cut the old sleeve out.




Then I moved on to the frame that holds the blade itself. That was a chance to use the old Milwaukee die grinder. It made short work out of cleaning up the two bottom holes. Large one is for the shaft/axle the blade rotates on and the smaller hole is for the rotation pin. You can see how "wallered out" the bottom pin hole is even tough it has a sleeve. The sleeve was pretty much gone on the bottom end. This blade must have had a hard life.



The mag drill was used again to cut the top of the sleeve loose. It's magnet has it stuck onto a piece of 1/2" steel plate that is clamped in place with a big C-clamp and short bar clamp that are on the other side of the drill.

Good job man!

Gotta love that mag drill!

Those holes would have been a Sum-Bitch to drill without it.

I am especially intrigued by your “mobile base plate” that you have for it……I might have to rig something like that up for myself.

 

[chim]

The mag drill is one of those tools that doesn't get used with every project. It is often the best thing for some applications. Using it sometimes requires a little thought because of the way it mounts. I made up the piece of steel with a large hole that works in many cases. Sometimes a simple piece of steel works, as the pic below where I'm drilling a thick wood column at my BIL's. Two of the spots it was used on the blade project needed to have a scrap piece of steel plate shimmed to get around a small second thickness of existing material (one with a second plate and the other with a piece of 1/2" allthread.

EDIT TO ADD for mag drill noobies: The material it's anchored to needs to have some thickness to it. The 1/4" thick plate with the hole is MINIMUM. With that plate if you get too aggressive with the feed it can act like a jack on the magnetic base and break it loose.