AndyA
Well-known member
I've been digging lots of holes with a 3-point post hole digger. The mix of sand and clay has been giving me fits. The soil is so abrasive that I've worn flat spots on the teeth after about two holes. Then the auger just rides on the flat spots and doesn't dig in. I've tried welding on hardfacing. It's an improvement but I'm still stopping every few holes to reweld/resharpen.
I started doing a little internet research and found carbide teeth for the auger. Natually they were well out of my price range, BUT I have a little hobby lathe and I happened to have a few dull/chipped carbide inserts laying around. I bronze brazed these onto the edge of the steel teeth. Wow what a difference. The carbide has gotten polished to a nice shine, but very little of the material is wearing away. I'm going to repeat this on all the teeth on all the different sized augers. This means I need 20 or 30 inserts. It would take me years to go through that many on the hobby lathe, and the price on new inserts make it prohibitive.
Anybody run a machine shop that's throwing these away? I don't care if they're dull and chipped or broken. Any shape and size would work. A small handfull would probably last me years. Let me know what you'd want for them, and shipping costs.
I started doing a little internet research and found carbide teeth for the auger. Natually they were well out of my price range, BUT I have a little hobby lathe and I happened to have a few dull/chipped carbide inserts laying around. I bronze brazed these onto the edge of the steel teeth. Wow what a difference. The carbide has gotten polished to a nice shine, but very little of the material is wearing away. I'm going to repeat this on all the teeth on all the different sized augers. This means I need 20 or 30 inserts. It would take me years to go through that many on the hobby lathe, and the price on new inserts make it prohibitive.
Anybody run a machine shop that's throwing these away? I don't care if they're dull and chipped or broken. Any shape and size would work. A small handfull would probably last me years. Let me know what you'd want for them, and shipping costs.
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