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I'm in the process of rebuilding a garden shredder/chipper and will soon be again hardfacing the flails, probably using Stoody 31 electrodes. The flails are 3/16" thick and perhaps 5" long, with the leading edge ground at a somewhat acute angle, both to make cutting of branches more efficient and to pull them downward slightly, making the unit self-feeding. A crude diagram of a finished flail is below.Deposits of this material tend to have rounded edges, so in the past, I have typically deposited a decent thickness and then gone over the deposits with a TIG torch, moving the material so as to form a better corner and lessen the grinding needed to get the wanted sharp top edge. At times, I've used carbon back up blocks against the top edge of the flail, but that only partly helps. I now have some Silicon plates and was wondering if they might work better; perhaps the hardfacing would bond to the plates and once cooled, could be broken away, leaving a flat surface and a better corner. That's assuming the silicon doesn't significantly alloy with the facing and mess with its properties, particularly hardness or toughness. I thought it might be worth testing the idea, at least.I an curious if anyone here has an opinion about this situation.

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