Skidshoes for a snowblower

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Several years ago I finally bought a snowblower.  Standard walk-behind model, nothing super big or anything.  Certainly not like that V-8 snowblower I remember seeing on the Net several years ago.    What was the model name on that thing, the Binford TurboHydro Slushmaster 350 cubic inch or something?    No wait, I just -had- to do a Google search and Ta-Da ...http://www.gizmag.com/go/4889/http://theawesomer.com/v8-snowblower/9019/http://jalopnik.com/339171/the-v8+po...ns-frostys-***That monster has a 454 Chevy as the power source and the the 42 inch auger is being spun via a Chevy 10 bolt differential.  Mine isn't nearly that big.    The snowblower that is. Just a standard 10HP Snow-King engine and a 28 inch auger width.Anyway ...After the first season of use, the factory skidshoes are worn out and are now more like skate blades than shoes or skids.  So I go to the big-box store and look for replacements.  Nope.  Seasonal item and all that, they won't get their shipment(s) of replacement parts back in stock until the next winter.  Go figure.So off to the outdoor power equipment dealer for some replacement skidshoes.  IIRC, two little pieces of stamped mild steel cost me around $30.    Not seeing as I had any real choice in the matter, I bought them.Those skidshoes lasted for just one season as well.  So for those reasons and more, I bought a welder.  Rebuilt the next set of skidshoes for maybe $2 worth of steel.  And that steel was from the BigBox store, so the steel was a bit pricey as plain mild steel goes.  But the rebuilt shoes were pretty much just a little thicker in the shoe/skid area than the original factory or the replacement commercial ones.  Factory/commercial shoe thickness was maybe 1/8 inch, and I think those first shoes I made were 3/16 inch thick.Those rebuilt shoes lasted one season.    But they did still have a tiny little bit of shoe left compared to when the original factory shoes had turned into skates after one season.  So, after rebuilding the skidshoes on my walk-behind snowblower several times at once per season, I decided to GoBig this year/season.This year's version of the skidshoes also included some 'mild' hardfacing on the wear face.  As per my info/material search here http://weldingweb.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=28035The first three pics show what is left of a pair of factory/commercial skidshoes after one season of use.  The worn-out ones are the black 'skates' in the foreground.    My current incarnation of the GoBig skidshoes are the bigger ones that actually have a skid or a shoe on them.  More in the next post ... Attached Images  The best laid schemes ... Gang oft agley ...
Reply:Shoot, we just tossed the broken corner protector from the plow. 5/8" probably AR400. 6 years of rubbing them on curbs, 150 miles each storm and they were still in very good condition. The only problem was I clipped a corner and snapped the brittle steel. Snaped the 6" x 5/8" thick steel and didn't even notice it.If you need wear protection, you need to see if you can't get a chunk of old wear edge for a plow or some AR plate..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:The factory/commercial shoes had maybe 1/8 inch thick steel as the shoe/skid.  Well, actually the entire thing was just stamped out of that steel thickness.    So the skid was maybe 1/8 inch thick and about 1/2 inch wide or so.This year's rebuild made the shoes just a wee bit bigger in the skid area.    these shoes are now 1 inch width mild steel that is 3/8 inch thick (or is it 5/8 thick? ).  And the bottom of the shoes is hardfaced with 3 passes thick of some McKay ArmorWear 0.035 FCAW hardface wire.  Total shoe thickness is now about 3/4+ inches.  I hope that lasts more than one season.  First pic shows the two rebuilt skidshoes that together weigh 4+ pounds.    I don't think the pair of 'original' skidshoes weighed 1 pound together.Next two pics show the rebuilt skidshoes and the hardface layers on the bottom.The assembly welding was with Lincoln L-56 ER70S-6 with with C25 gas.As mentioned above, the hardface is McKay ArmorWear 0.035 FCAW wire.  The wire was a LOT more finicky about the welding parameters than the L-56 or some Lincoln NR211 I've used in the past.  I ground out a -lot- of the hardface early attempts, as the welds were frankly horrible.  Stringer beads and lower weld parameters resulted in u-g-l-y beads full on porosity and terrible tie-in.  Cranking up the welder (Lincoln SP175Plus) a bit still didn't help enough.  Tried a weave at the slightly hotter parameters, and now I could get something that resembled a bead!    The hardface is two weave 'strips' run parallel to the long dimension of the shoes, then another weave pass in the center of the 'valley' tying into the two first hardface passes (which are each only one 'layer' thick), and then a 'cap' weave pass on top of it all to give me the recommended 3-layer max of hardface (per the McKay product sheet).  The hardface layers were put on after the shoes were preheated v-e-r-y well, up into the 500-600F range.  btw, that temperature made the steel such a beautiful rich 'royal' blue color, almost like a Colt blued steel blue.  I didn't take a picture of that blue, I was busy trying to get the hardface on.     I didn't want the hardface to chip or check-crack and I wanted it to tie-in nicely into the base steel, hence the aggressive preheat.Oh, as you can see I also made the new shoes three slots long instead of the factory two slots long.  I had enough worn-out factory shoes that I cut and spliced two two-slot shoes into a 3-slot shoe.  The shoes were cold galv sprayed and one had a top coat of some rattle-can black.  Hence the colors of the new shoes.  It's still too early to know how they are holding up, but nothing has fallen off or apart yet.   I glanced at the shoes after a couple of uses, and they are still there so far.  I'll keep an eye on them and also check them at the end of the season to see how they are holding up.In the spring, I may hardface the wearplate/shaveplate (I also rebuilt that last season out of thicker-than-factory mild steel).  Trying to hardface the auger edges or the impeller paddle ends I thick will be darn tricky as trying to weave on the edge of some maybe 16 gauge steel is going to be tough.   Attached Images  The best laid schemes ... Gang oft agley ...
Reply:I have an 2 Ariens 1336's, 13hp and 36" cut. They have an on board battery for starting. The battery is on the one side so first snowfall on clean concrete the skid shoes would dig in to the concrete and stop the machine. And the torque would make the unit want to turn. It felt like it was going to rip off your wrists. So I bought new bogie wheels for the undercarriage on a snowmobile, made a bracket with a little axle and now they run very smooth and won't wear out."Where's Stick man????????" - 7A749"SHHHHHH!! I sent him over to snag that MIC-4 while tbone wasn't looking!" - duaneb55"I have bought a few of Tbone's things unlike Stick-Man who helps himself" - TozziWelding"Stick-man"
Reply:I put hardfacing on my bosses blower when he bought it new a few months ago. It snowed about 36" last year and we haven't had any yet this year for him to try it out. He says I owe him money for keeping the snow away this year.
Reply:I don't know how sensitive the height adjustment is, or the room for adjustment.Wouldn't it be easier to just add a sacrificial wear plate, and replace it when worn out?"Any day above ground is a good day"http://www.farmersamm.com/
Reply:Crap, already mentioned"Any day above ground is a good day"http://www.farmersamm.com/
Reply:So these skid shoes bolt to the sides of the blower and slide along and keep it a certain height off the surface?? I can see where they wouldn't last long if you did a lot of snow on concrete or asphalt.  Your new ones should hold up quite a bit better.
Reply:Samm,There are skidshoes and there is a shave plate.  Both of them can be rubbing on the ground at the same time.  If one of them is set lower to the ground, then all the wear will be on that one.  Of course if the skid shoes are set lower than the shave plate, then I would end up leaving a 'skim' of snow instead of getting all the way to the ground.  Sandy,Yes, the skidshoes bolt to the sides of the machine.  The auger housing specifically.  btw, if the skidshoes totally wear 'out', then the sheetmetal auger housing is one of the next things to rub on the ground and wear out.    Well, the housing and the shave plate.  But the original shave plate was just some 'thick' sheetmetal, just gauge thickness stuff.  My rebuild is a bit thicker than the original. And yes, all my surfaces that I run the machine on are either asphalt or concrete.raptor,A few years ago one of my neighbors bought a snowblower.  We didn't have any snow for about two months into winter that year.  I told him it was because he bought the machine.    The best laid schemes ... Gang oft agley ...
Reply:I'm not sure how quickly this would wear down but maybe look into using some replacable UHMW wear plates.  It is cheap and has a good wear resistance and is slick, unlike metal so it might "glide" over the concrete instead of scraping over it.  I've used some for a couple of projects and it works really good for slidding and seems to be pretty resistant to wearing.  Just a thought I had while reading your post.  I bought a snow blower last year and my mom bought a new one this year.  Didn't have much of an issue with wear on the plates but I have some UHMW laying around so might have to try it out if the weather warms up a little.
Reply:ponch,I've seen the replacement 'plastic' skidshoes.  They are/were being marketed as replacements for use on 'delicate' surfaces that users didn't want to get scratched.  I can see that as a valid market niche, sort-of.  I mean if someone with more money than brains wants to have an outdoor patio made with all polished Travertine marble http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travertine_marble or real polished marble tiles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble or some other smooth polished surface and -then- needs to have the snow removed from said smooth polished surfaces for their outdoor WinterFest party, then I can see the need for the no-scratch plastic skidshoes.  Me?  I'm removing snow and ice and slush and such from paved surfaces and concrete surfaces.  They really don't scratch much.  They are pretty much the 'scratcher' and not the 'scratchee'.    And if a piece of -steel- gets worn out from abrasion against those surfaces, I don't have ANY illusions that a piece of plastic would hold up to that level of abrasion.  UHMW plastics have their uses.  I don't think abrasion against asphalt and concrete is one of them.  The best laid schemes ... Gang oft agley ...
Reply:When I was about 12-14 yo me and a friend made a sled that we pulled behind our riding mower that had two UHMW skis that were 3 1/2" wide and 36" long that we pulled a total of 5 miles on dry pavement. Besides scratches, you couldn't see any wear.
Reply:Follow-up and update:My GoBig skidshoes are definitely holding up waaaaay better than the OEM ones or my first slightly-thicker-than-OEM ones.But the hardfacing was pretty worn out.  Sorry, I didn't take pics.  The low-carbon steel 'guts' are all intact, but the hardfacing was worn down pretty far but not into the plain steel part.  The top cap pass and the middle-layer pass were worn and ground flat from ground contact/abrasion.The McKay ArmorWear wire is not a super hard or carbide-rich type of hardfacing, it's just a martensitic tool-steel type.  But my wire-feed welder (SP-175+) can't really run any of the bigger or harder type wires, so it is what it is.I ran another 'cap' pass with a medium-wide weave using the McKay wire.  No preheat this time, so maybe this layer will be a bit harder, Rc-wise, than the first layers I put in.  Came out OK (for a hardfacing material).  No pics (yet).  Maybe this weekend if I remember.  Stil have to put some rattle-can paint (cold galv spray) onto things and button everything back up.Also ran some hardface 'buttons' on the 'gnawing' edges of the augers, as they were also showing some wear.As well as redoing almost all of the OEM welds of the auger helixes using plain ER70S-6 wire, as those welds were rusting pretty badly, and welding up some major cracks in the auger housing, and on and on.All-in-all, I'd say it was a good idea and is holding up OK.  The 'wear-layer' wore out, but the underlying steel is still intact.Maybe some 'real' carbide-rich abrasion-resistant hardfacing would be a better idea, but that is even more $$$ just for the filler/electrodes.  The best laid schemes ... Gang oft agley ...
Reply:Funny that I'm just reading this.Last week I upgraded snow blowers and sold my 6hp24" to my parents.They have a driveway that's half gravel, and with how loose the stones are, and the jump onto the concrete (plus the jump on and off of the ramp into the shed where they're storing the thing), I needed something a little more able to "float" on the stones.I just added a plate of 1/4" thick (about 1.75" wide) steel to the bottom of the original shoes.Bent in a vice using a hammer, and I added a couple of beads of 308L stainless to the bottom as "hardfacing", plus a piece of hose as a bumper on the front.If it wears too much this winter, I'll use some real stick hardfacing on it.  I'm just hoping it doesn't float too much and ride up on the snow.  I may have to make the front taper some. Attached Images
Reply:Rlitman, nice but I think those are gonna grab the snow bank way too much. My bogie wheels I made for mine grab also, and it's a pain on a deep snow. Originally Posted by Stick-manI have an 2 Ariens 1336's, 13hp and 36" cut. They have an on board battery for starting. The battery is on the one side so first snowfall on clean concrete the skid shoes would dig in to the concrete and stop the machine. And the torque would make the unit want to turn. It felt like it was going to rip off your wrists. So I bought new bogie wheels for the undercarriage on a snowmobile, made a bracket with a little axle and now they run very smooth and won't wear out.