I figured I’d add a few farm related projects to the site here. This is one that I kinda backed into over the past few weeks. I picked up a badly beaten back blade for scrap this summer. It sat waiting for me to get to until a few weeks ago when I decided to pull it out and see if I could get it going quickly to help clean the driveway. The quick answer is it’ll take a bit of work. I’ve been taking it apart and now feel that it’s well worth saving.

I’ve been discussing this project with my friends at the Machine Builders Network.

I didn’t take a picture of it before I started. Here’s the state it’s in now:

This is the main frame. You can see where the end that has the latch that holds the blade at a certain angle had broken several times and been repaired, with varying degrees of finesse and success. I’m going to have to cut the whole crack out so I can bend things back into the proper position.

The threads at the end of the blade pivot had been all messed up. They had ground groves to hold a cable clamp in place to keep the blade on using a plumbing flange as a washer. Originally there must have been some sort of special “washer” and then a heavy nut with a split pin to keep it in place. The thread is 1″ fine thread. I managed to clean up the threads with a borrowed thread repair file.

Here’s a close up of the bodged up “fix”. A nut will now thread on. I think I’ll weld a plate on to a nut so I can use the “good” part of the threads down near the bottom.

There is an adjustable rod from the front frame to the back that will adjust the blade angle (I think). It was rusted solid but I managed to get it moving heating it red hot. It would only move when glowing. There was about a foot of threaded rod that I could only get to move a few turns at a time. The rod is bent now because it bent as I was cranking it out when the rod was very hot. My current plan it to use the top link to replace the thread. Or I might buy a chunk of 1″ threaded rod and weld it in (as it looks like was done previously). I’m not sure that this massive range of adjustment is really needed. A grease nipple certainly is needed though!