[TheForge] fish plates? just how big are they?

[J. Petrila]

while from a structural stand point fish plates are supposed to help shed
the load from the area that was damaged/joined and disperse it over a
larger area.. thus reinforcing the area and joint..

I personally only drill out the cracks once I have straightened out the
sheet metal as the cracks will propagate as the metal is pushed or hammered
back to where it belongs..

Ideally the thickness of the plate should be the same or slightly under the
parent material but it's a mower deck..   If welded properly even with no
fish plates it will hold up just fine..

I've done maybe 20 of them (fixed for money) and I've only had 2 come back
but not for anything where I fixed it.  The guys were prone on running into
stuff.. I think they were crashing the mowers on purpose..

I used to clean everything spotless and then tig weld it back together as
TIG welding offers the best Ductility and elongation but I found it was way
overkill..  I thin just started to clean everything, drill the ends of the
cracks, weld the cracks full penetration, then grind off the part of the
welds that were overly high.. and call it a day..

On large tractor decks, bush hogs and such they get fish plated.. Or if
it's a structural beam like on a gantry crane..



JLP Services Inc
6 Kenwood Dr
Rutland, MA 01543-1215

1 (508) 667-5498

On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 11:23 AM, terry l. ridder <terrylr at blauedonau.com>
wrote:

> hello
>
> the mower deck is still a project in progress.
> I still to figure out how to block the fork lift so if the hydraulics
> fail i am not crushed by the forks. (absolutely no joy in that)
>
> anyway,  i was looking at the place that needs to be welded. The
> question that came to mind is "Just how big should fish plate be?"
>
> given the nature of the scalper wheel holder and the broken weld I was
> thinking a metal diamond about the size of my little finger fingernail.
>
>
> --
> terry l. ridder ><>
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