Excavator bucket repair

This job was brought to me by a PEI local landscaper. After much tender loving care, this poor unfortunate bucket got cracked! I know it was devastating news. Good thing I was here to fix it.

The first thing to do was to get to the root of the problem. The only way I know how to do that is to grind away. Grind away I did. Layers and layers of old crack repairs fell to my tenacious grinding. I gouged out spider cracks as they popped up and in the end, took a zip disc to get into the very depths of the crack.

After all that fun and glorious grinding it was time to weld. Personally, if I can TIG weld I will TIG weld. At the moment I am limited to Stick and TIG welding, I know that TIG is a stronger weld than any other processes, and seeing as the bucket was in the shop I figured why not. I got a nice smooth root in with the TIG and proceeded to fill. There was a lot to fill after getting to the root. I filled with TIG for a while but later switched to Stick to speed things along.

One thing I noticed on this job, after welding the bucket for a good while it obviously was getting hot. This was causing little additional spider cracks to pop and show. So I would chase them around and fill them up with weld. Once I could no longer find cracks and the cap passes were done I put on primer, tremclad, and clear to call it done. I feel very silly clear-coating an excavation bucket. But I don’t feel a paint job is done without it and it bothers me otherwise.

I will request regular updates on the bucket as I feel if anything is going to put this paint to the test it will be the bucket.