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Last week I had Adam schoellig of Schoellig’s welding come over and weld new lugs on 4 mowers for me. He was very fast and efficient and the mowers look great. We put the mower up on jack stands and he just sat right on a bucket and spun the wheels to work on a flat surface. he used a truck mounted ac / dc arc welder with 70 – 18 rod. This is a high tensile rod. Much cheaper than the cast rod that would have made the job too expensive. Using 3/8 square hot rolled stock that he cut to length at home in his shop. There are 72 pieces per mower! he would tack them all on both ends as a way to start gradually heating the wheel with out slowing production. Then he went around just doing one side of each one, again controlling the heating of the wheel. Keeping it warm but not over heating it. Finally reposition the bucket and a second weld on each piece.
He made me think I could do this my self with 70 – 18 rod for my old ac welder, and a little more practice. Fortunately I have a couple broken wheels
I am convinced that when a perfectly good mower doesn’t seem to meet expectations it is often because the wheels are not all they could be. Today most of my neighbors are running 6′ and 7′ bars and these are need wheels with the added traction to run the bigger bar. Wheel slip can be hard to distinguish from the plugging that immediately follows .
I used my mower with new lugs a few days ago and it worked great. Even after a trainee let the mower plug a little while stopping (if you need to stop in the grass always try to lift the bar before you stop, then drop it), the wheels just started the mower right up. On Sunday I hope to start mowing for real!
pretty snazzy, another thing you can use if you have the ablity to get your hands on it is a tig with s309 wire, thats is what I normally use when I weld cast in place of the nickle rods… biggest issue with the cast is controlling the heat.
how long of bars do these mowers have?
kind of an off question but ever wonder why spreader wheels have bars angled and mowers are straight?
Hi Donn:
Very interesting information. I am curious to hear how the 7018 welds hold up. Here is link to some interesting strategies for welding cast iron – I just ordered some “Nomacast” electrodes () which seem to be somewhere between spending big bucks on nickel and the 7018 alternative.
What is the thickness of the original lug? 3/8? I know this is new to you, but at what is your threshold for deciding when new lugs are necessary? Did you mow yesterday? Any noticeable difference in the mower’s performance? Any more information on the welding? Was he welding AC or DC? Electrode positive? Amperage?
Thanks for the info.
George
Looks like the links did not come through in my previous post. I tried the underlined link button in the tab above which apparently is not working. Here is an attempt with the link image (looks like a chain) in the tab at the top. Hopefully they come through:
Cast Iron Welding Strategies Link:
Electrode Link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKIRL2/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1Hi George, I think his welding rig DC, but I might be confused about that. Not sure how he had it set for amperage. I had tried some of the NOMcast rod already. It did make lugs stick on the wheels but I didn’t think there were on there very good. I was able to knock one off with a hammer. I have an old busted wheel I use for experiments. Of course I mowed on Sunday, you should have been able to tell by looking at the rain gauge! Mine went up and inch and a half!
Of course it is not scientific but both my mowers were working great on Sunday. Interns first day mowing hay and I don’t think he plugged once. The wheels I had relugged would not have been considered bad by everyone. They had at least 3/8 still standing in the center of the wheel and worn down more than half at the out side. When running the six and seven foot bars however I don’t think you can have too much traction.
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