[matt_bmsmachine]

Hi,

Disclaimer, not a welder or a machinist, just have to do a lot of machining and a lot of welding for the job shop. Looking for help/advice on doing this. Also have a company quoting out doing them from scratch but 6-8 week lead time and cost pretty high.

Got a project coming up to weld up (have repaired it a number of times) flights to a shaft for a new auger (2 or 3 of these). Still working out what the shaft material will be (most likely nitronic or 17-4) but the flights will probably be 304 or 316. When I've repaired this patching the flights back together is a bit of a mess and repairing the shaft is fun but not too difficult. So far I have quoted out the flights that come as ring segments, will need 10 of them, 1/4" thick by 6" OD and 2" ID. I am not sure how to edge prep the flights to match the photo and where the segments join, not sure what I will need to do there, maybe grind a v on the edges of each so I'll have a nice v groove type weld on each side of it to sand smooth after. I do have the option of going up to 2-1/4 shaft which means a continuous flight which would save having to stitch them all together.

My other concerns are in welding to the shaft, minimizing distortion since this needs to run true in a tube, making a nice large bead on both sides and then how to grind it smooth after. I have angle grinding and flappers and a couple rotary air tools but have never gone beyond simple grind and flapper and hand sanding/scotch brite. I do not think I need to get to a near polish because the material will smooth out the sanding but I do think I need to get to a decently smooth sanded type finish. I can give more details as needed.

Best
-Matt

[Poland308]

Grind a v bevel equally from the front of the flighting and the back of the flight. Which isn’t much on 1/4 flighting. Lots of tacks no more than 2 inches apart. Repeat until all the pieces are in place. Then just start bouncing around and rolling the assembly as you work your way around. Give it plenty of cooling time. Are you using solid shaft? If so make sure as you bounce around to get the welds between flighting done first before you get about halfway on the welds connecting the flights to the shaft done.

[ESENTI]

Dear mat ,in general welding starts from middle so it leaves room to expand ,cool and continue , force draft or spray water for faster.|You can make this spiral on a strong lathe or in pieces and strong heat to reform it