Homemade scrapmetal #Palletfork complete. Seems I got the measurements right, picks up and drops pallets from the ground perfectly. Either length- or sideways.

Very pleased. This will be so useful for hauling stuff around the farm.

Slight limitation in how high I can lift them, but it's sufficient. Might modify it if the need for more height arises, but it's a yard hauler, not a forklift.

Now I just need to get more pallets 😁

#Homestead #DIY #Welding #Metalworking #Tractor #ScrapMetal #SalvagePunk

The homemade #PalletFork is starting to look like money. These sell for €300 to €500 if you buy one instead of welding it from scrap steel found around the farm.

Let's see what this cost us (rough numbers):
€11 fittings
€26 paint (only used half though)
€5 power
€12 fluxcore wire
€3 cutting/grinding wheels etc.
====
€57

Bargain! And it was more fun than buying. And much more satisfying 🤩

This paint dries slowly. One more coat, hopefully tomorrow.

#DIY #Welding #Tractor #MetalWorking #SalvagePunk #ScrapMetal #Homestead #Paint

Added some reinforcement pieces at the critical corner. That concludes the welding.

Cleaned up a bit with powered and manual wire brushes, then put on some anti-rust primer (Novakor from Rilak). Painting is where you pay for not using closed profiles 😆

Looking forward to using this thing to tidy up the yard!

#Tractor #PalletFork #Welding #DIY #Metalworking #Homestead #SalvagePunk #ScrapMetal

#PalletFork progress! 🎇

Made the top pieces for the ears (lift arm connections is the technical term, I think) and made a crossbeam, which took some elaborate measuring but fit pretty good.

Some seam welding later and then a moment of immense satisfaction: It fits! Took it for a spin immediately, of course.

Even better, I thought I might need a shorter top link but it looks like I might just get away with the one I got.

The rust converter has been busy over night and some rust has turned black.

Still need to finish a couple seams and then weld a bunch of extra armour points to the critical fulcrums to increase the load rating. So far I only tested it with my bodyweight

#Tractor #DIY #SalvagePunk #ScrapMetal #Welding #Homestead #Metalworking

Set up the plasma cutter, which we don't have enough power for and so I can barely use it at half and frazzled a hole into the undrillable steel, then made it round and clean(ish) with the die grinder, which took a good while. Funny, the angle grinder cut the stuff just fine. This is why your legendary items are so expensive - bloody difficult materials to work with!

Top link fitting is on and the ears are aligned and tacked on, the aligning being the hard work here.

Couple more parts to go!

#Tractor #PalletFork #DIY #SalvagePunk #ScrapMetal #Homestead #Metalworking #Welding

Progress on the #PalletFork

Working with reclaimed steel is a lot slower. I was cleaning up rust and dirt, welding shut some holes where the fence wire used to go through and painting rust converter on where it would be difficult later.

After much measuring and aligning, I cut the frame and tack-welded it together.

Then a filler plate into the top.

In between, some angle grinder repair (broken wire) and of course the fluxcore reel ran out and needed swapping.

#Tractor #Welding #DIY #SalvagePunk #ScrapMetal #Homestead #Fluxcore