So, I had to repair a flat spot on a roller for the boom of a rough terrain forklift.


I cleaned it up nice(without brake cleaner!) and filled in the flat spot with a mig welder.




then chucked it into the ancient, but handy, polish-american lathe(total runout .25, yes the decimal is in the right place! what? it is old, and hardly gets used)

and turned it down to this


I know the roller is hardened, I know the weld is gonna be softer, and I know it was a PITA to get the lathe to cut down the weld, as it was raised above the roller surface.

My question is this. What would the right way have been to do this fix. I have no idea what type/hardness of steel the wheel is.

And what is the easiest way to machine the fix (i had to take a file to it after machining to get the lip to where I liked it.)

should I have used a softer cutting tool than the carbide? I turned it about .010 at a time at about 500 RPM and it still left a ridge on one side and the other was smooth...

Don't get me wrong, it worked, looks good, and will last a lot longer than a flat wheel, but there has got to be a better way.