Think about what you could do with an extra four hours during your workweek. Or perhaps with an extra three or four days each month. At Pitsch Wrecking, they are finding out the extra hours mean more time in the field.

The company's buckets, in particular, take on serious jobsite abuse and regularly sustain the damage to show for it. From tearing down buildings to recycling the concrete salvaged from the rubble, parts and pieces of this equipment crack, break off and just simply wear away. In fact, it's not uncommon for a bucket to return from a demolition site to the repair shop with 8 inches of metal missing from its top surface.

Repairing such damage can be just as tough as the equipment itself, sometimes even tougher. When they're returned to Pitsch's repair shop, the buckets are dirty and often of an unknown metal grade, given the vast fleet of equipment the company owns. Plus, they've usually been welded on multiple times. Two years ago, however, with the help of a trusted welding distributor and Hobart Brothers' gas-shielded flux-cored welding wire – the Tri-Mark® TM-811N1 – dirt, broken weldments and mystery metal grades ceased to be a problem.

Pitsch Wrecking (or officially, Pitsch Companies) started in the demolition and salvaging business long before recycling became a household or corporate buzzword – for more than 50 years in fact. They retain a large fleet of heavy demolition equipment at their yard in Grand Rapids, MI, and they also operate a concrete recycling and crushing facility in the nearby city of Walker, MI, where they are able to convert concrete from their demolition jobs into valuable road gravel and other multipurpose stone.

“We recycle or salvage everything we can from a demolition site – wood, concrete and scrap metal,” Jon Watts, a repair welder at Pitsch, said.

Keeping the equipment operating smoothly at the concrete crushing facility depends largely in part on Watt's handiwork and that of fellow repair welder Eric Voet. But most importantly, it is their job to ensure that the heavy equipment used in the field each day, where it tears down everything from old commercial buildings to out-of-date petroleum stations, stays up and running for as long as possible. This is especially true of the company's buckets, which comprise a large percentage of Pitsch's fleet.

“If a piece of bucket breaks down in the field, especially on an out-of-state job, Pitsch has to rent another one or make temporary repairs in the field,” Watts said. “Either way, it causes downtime.”

When Watts and Voet receive the buckets, they're usually in rough shape and routinely need multiple repairs. These include rebuilding worn parts, reattaching abrasion resistant (AR) plates, and placing an overlay of hard surfacing to protect the equipment from wear when it goes back into service.

“When you look at a place like Pitsch, this is where welding gets interesting. Not only are they making repairs, they are also fabricating and hard surfacing,” explained Bill England of Purity Cylinder Gases, Inc. of Grand Rapids – Pitsch's welding supply distributor. “So there are two distinct challenges to this welding process. One, they have to replace missing parts and build the equipment back up to the correct dimensions; and two, they have to use a welding wire that will resist impact and wear well in the field.”

Previously, Pitsch used both solid welding wire and a hard surfacing welding wire for its equipment repair and fabrication jobs. This wire combination, however, required additional steps, both during the inventory and the welding processes. They'd need to order, store and change multiple wires for each job. More importantly, the combination also failed to yield the results the company needed to withstand the abuse of its demolition and concrete crushing projects.

“We had welds breaking in the field and equipment that was coming back right after we sent it out,” Voet said. “We'd just keep seeing the same equipment over and over.”

More often than not, the weld failures occurred in the form of cracks caused by the repeated impact of the buckets against metal and other debris the equipment encountered on the demolition site.

England explains, “Pitsch needed a wire that could lay down a good base, but that was also able to keep some ductility and take an impact. We had to be able to put a piece of equipment in the field and not have any welds fail again. So we ultimately settled on the TM-811N1 wire and the rest is history.”

When a bucket finds its way back to Pitsch's repair shop from the field, it frequently has suffered two types of damage. One, it is worn on the front side or corner portion near the teeth – the area that is both the weakest point of the bucket, but ironically also the point that encounters the most impact. Two, it requires a new AR plate on the front and/or side, or the existing plate needs to be reinforced.

To repair the worn bucket corners, Voet and Watts must first grind a V-groove into the broken area, gouge out any of the old welds, and remove rust (as much as possible on a used bucket), dirt or other debris. Next, using the Hobart Brothers Tri-Mark TM-811N1wire, they weld a stringer bead back and forth along the length of the cutaway area. The TM-811N1, like other gas-shielded flux-cored wires, produces slag during the welding process that has to be chipped away after each welding pass. Many welding operators would attest that chipping slag can sometimes be difficult and time consuming, but Voet has found just the opposite to be true with the Hobart Brothers product.

“The slag practically falls right off,” Voet explained. “As soon as it's gone, I can start adding another pass of wire, and so on, until the area we've gouged out is completely level. It's a pretty fast process compared to before.”

Adding to that speed and the wire's relative ease-of-use is the fact that Voet and Watts now don't have to switch to a hard surfacing wire to provide a final overlay. The TM-811N1 provides better resistance to wear and impact than the solid and hard surfacing wire combination Pitsch used previously.

According to David Vinson, district manager for Hobart Brothers, the TM-811N1 wire is designed to provide such results, especially good impact strengths at low temperatures. This feature is undoubtedly the leading cause for the wire's success at Pitsch, as its demolition projects put a beating on the equipment and they span year round, even through the bitterly cold Michigan winters. The fact that the wire also wears well only adds to its success in these applications.

As a side note, Vinson mentioned, “The TM-811N1 isn't a hard surfacing wire, but it serves that purpose for Pitsch. That versatility is saving them a lot of time for changing out wires, it's getting the job finished faster and the welds are lasting longer.” Vinson also added that any company wishing to use a wire like TM-811N1 to obtain hard surfacing properties should first consult their welding distributor to determine whether it can achieve similar results.

Voet further added that the previous hard surfacing wasn't as forgiving or easy to use, as the weld bead was too fluid and had a tendency to “fall off” of the previous weld pass, making the welding process more difficult and time-consuming.

Both Voet and Watts have found the same positive results with TM-811N1 when welding AR plate to the buckets, which saves them even more time – they can use the same wire for the job yet again. For smaller buckets, Pitsch uses a thinner AR200 plate and for the larger buckets, it uses a thicker AR400 plate. In both instances, the plate must be welded securely to the bucket (which, as mentioned at the beginning, could be one of many types of base metals) and then covered with dots that help increase the AR plate's wear resistance.

So what's the final verdict?

According to Watts, since standardizing on the TM-811N1 wire, Pitsch Wrecking has cut four hours from the average repair time of a bucket, decreasing repairs from 12 hours to eight. He attributes the time savings not only to the fact that he and Voet don't need to switch wires, first using a solid wire and then a hard surfacing one, but also to the fact that the TM-811N1 wire is so much easier to use. Watts cites similar savings on other Pitsch equipment, including its grapples and pulverizers.

Topping off the success of the TM-811N1 wire: Welds on the equipment last up to 30 percent longer in the field. This is where the true savings has shown itself to Pitsch.

“These guys make their living off of equipment being in the field and having as much up time as possible, and this wire has given them that benefit,” England explained. “So the savings isn't just in the time it takes to weld something. It's also in the time that the equipment stays in the field for Pitsch.”

Watts added, “I can notice a big difference because I'm not seeing the same bucket as quickly. It can go on three different jobs, even large ones that last months, and I still don't get them back for repairs. Before I'd see them halfway between the jobs.”

That longevity is the greatest success for Pitsch, because having more time in the field helps the company do what it does best – tear down the old to make room for the new.

Editor's note: Bill England has left Purity Cylinder Gases to assume the position of assistant professor in the Welding Engineering Technology Department at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, MI.

Keith Packard is sales and marketing manager, Low Alloy Tubular Wire Division, Hobart Brothers. David Vinson is district manager with Hobart Brothers.