John Deer load controler shaft

C

crguin

Joined
Oct 27, 2002
Messages
35
I've read Mr. Ed Fowlers post about John Deer load controler shafts being very clean 5160 and would like to have a go at forging one. I think it would help if I knew what one looked like. I've asked around but none of the farmers that I have talked to knew what I was talking about.

Anyone mind taking a pic for me?

Any comments are welcome also.

thanks

Chris Guin
Marietta, MS
 
Just go to your local John Deere dealer and hang around the shop. The mechanics should know what youre talking about. I believe its called a rock shaft also. Its about 24" long and is used for the 3 point hitch load. They get replaced often.
 
I've had good luck at our local dealership by just asking the guys in the shop as Bruce suggested. Their first question is what for so take something you have made.

Now here is the dangerous point. Someone will ask if you can make one for him.......tell him that you are about a year behind in orders but will be happy to as soon as you are caught up.

If you like working with the shafts, make the guy a knife and give it to him. Just make sure he does not' go around talking about getting it for free. He will be your friendly supplier forever, not only for the shafts but other things!
 
They are just a round bar of steel.....most of the time they are just a little thicker than a broom handle.

The thickest shaft I ever got to forge with was about 1 & 1/4 inch thick, but most are not that fat.

The problem is,,,,that the type of John Deere stuff that makes use of this type of shaft is getting hard to find....

Each month the John Deere dealership has less and less of a chance to have old ones on hand due to them older tractors are not working anymore.

I once asked if there was another part of the John Deere or any other thing that had the very same type of clean 5160 that the shaft has?

So far I have not heard any answers to that question...

I wish that I could find a better supply of clean 5160. yes springs are just as good sometimes, but each spring could be very different too....you never know what type of car it was off of, or where it came from?

The beauty of the John Deere Load Control Shaft was that they were always all the same. The shaft you found in the junk pile was the same as the one I found, even if we were on the other side of the world.

You cant beat getting something important, for free.....
 
Rex did some work on the steel from load control shafts, his most significand thought was that it appeared by laboratory analysis to have been subject to a very well designed heat treat system.

At one time 80 cuts was a lot, now using the forging and thermal treatments we use we can easily get over 400 cuts.

When forging steel, everything is of significance, pay attention to what you are doing and do it well.
 
I've only been a knifemaker for a couple of months now. Most of my knowledge about knifemaking came from the guys here at the forums. Thanks for sharing.

I've hooked up with a few local knifemakers too. Mr. Ted McMinn, Bruce Evans and Chris Crawford. They are all 30 minutes away either direction. They have really lit a fire under me. They all have tons of information to share. The second night I hung out with Bruce he had me forging damascus! We quit at 728 layers.

Hopefully they will keep me on my toes.

Thanks Again
 
I live in the very heart of the Northern Red River Valley, the best black-dirt farm land in the world.

I live in an area of the country that is dominated by farms both small and large. It is a common sight here to see farm equipment on the roads and in the fields.

So here you would expect that I would be hip deep in old John Deere control shafts, but Im not.

Every day I am finding them harder and harder to get. The newer John Deere tractors don't make use of the control shaft. As the older style tractors fade from use the likelihood that we can find used shafts in the scrap metal pile becomes less and less.

I have not found a control shaft at the local John Deere dealership in my home town for about a year.

I called the next biggest town and talked to the John Deere dealership there and found that they were hard pressed to even think back and remember when was the last one they changed out.

That's why I say; we need a Plan "B"

We need to find a way to get free or real cheap 5160 steel that are just as clean as the load shafts are.
 
The price of the steel we use is of little consequence. When you start with junk you usually end up with junk. It may be very expensive and pretty, but we cannot overcome initial defects in the steel we use, they remain. Blade Smiths coming to my shop to test often bring test blades that failed while they were working to develop their skills for the test. Looking at the broken blades usually reveals serious faults, most of which were in the steel when it was made, not the fault of the blade smith other than his choice of steel.

I hate to try to estimate the cost of the 52100 we use from Rex. By the time we have it worked the 5 1/2 inch round bars down to billets to make knives, usually1 1/2 x 3/4 inch stock we have invested a lot of time, propane, and sweat. I consicer the investement in the origonal steel well worth the cost.

One 1 inch by 2 inch billet of steel laying on my bench has been subject to over 50 thermal cycles

When developing the initial skills anything is OK, I forged blades from scrap that would not harden, my only goal was to develop forging skills. I practiced hardening skills with a piece of mild steel that was cycled through the quenchung process at least 50 times until I felt I was ready to harden a real knife blade. When I first started working on the real thing, I destroyed blades for over a year without puting a handle on one. Once I felt like I was able to make good knives all the time I started with some high grade 5160, then went to the ball bearings. Some of them had faults that were not obvious while making the knives.

The day Rex called me wanting me to try his steel was very probably the best day of my knife making life. I was amazed what could be acompolished when I used steel of known and consistent quality.
 
Saw this on eBay. He's calling it a rockshaft. Is this what some people are using for a good source of 5160?
 
It is hard to tell from the picture, it looks like it has a lot of hardware attached to it that you don't need. If you are interested, take the photo to a John Deer Dealer, ask their parts man if this is actually a 'load control shaft'. If it is a new one it is more valuable to a man who needs one, there are many different sizes for various tractors.

You can easily pick up used ones very cheap from John Deer repair shops. At one time I had over 200 lbs of them all picked up from a 2,000 trip mile round trip to Eugene Oregon. I just stopped at every dealership I passed and asked. $20.00 worth of donuts resulted in a yield of 7 shafts, enough for about 60 knives.
 
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