| Arable
Gaining maximum life from cultivation points
Minimising wear part cost £/ hectare , as well minimising that all-important downtime is critical to the bottom line . As soil conditions become more challenging , and weather becomes drier , day-to-day soil-engaging wear part costs become an ever more important part of farm life ... by Rupert Coggon , Business Development Director , Ferobide .
F ortunately there are several options of wear protection available on the market to enable longer operation lifetimes of wear parts . They have seen great success , so much so that sales of protected spare parts exceed normal hardened steel . Wear Protection Currently Available on the Market
There are several standard wear materials available currently , all giving a compromise on ease-of-use and performance . These range from highly resistant yet difficult to use brazed tungsten carbide , to hardface welding wire with low resistance .
Another factor is how they can be easily customised . In this regards , “ Ferobide ”, a highly resistant weld-on tungsten carbide steel composite plate made in the UK , stands out from the rest . It puts the control over wear protection in the hands of the end-user . The Limitations of Standard Wear Protection
Over the past decade , the use of tungsten carbide has grown strongly . With its high abrasion re-sistance it became the optimum material for preventing wear on cultivation points and associated wearing parts - but it has its drawbacks . The other option is the easier yet slow to apply standard hardface welding wire ( which lacks abrasion resistance ).
26 | Farming Monthly | January 2017
Brazed Tungsten Carbide
In order to braize tungsten carbide , the host steel is heated to cherry red , it is this heating which causes steel to lose its previous hardness . The large majority of users of traditionally brazed tungsten carbide are often highly frustrated in that the softened supporting steel now wears and fails prematurely .
Tungsten carbide is so wear resistant meaning ~ 90 % of the expensive tungsten carbide remains and must be disposed of . This increases down-time and wear part costs .
Users can be frustrated at losing the full potential of traditional tungsten carbide tile as its support is softened via brazing and thus fails prematurely . This leads to great loss of operational time and increases wear part costs . Why not apply more tungsten carbide ?
Tungsten carbide is expensive , machining the steel point and brazing the tungsten adds even more to this cost , making the finished parts many times more expensive than standard hardened steel components . Understandably , the minimum amount of tungsten is applied to the tip the point . The Need to Customise Wear Protection
The biggest issue is that each farmer has different soil types , works at different speeds and different depths . This means that cultivation points wear in different ways on each farm , some fail due to side wear , some to wear on the face of the tine , some due to wear from below the tine . There will be a different place to add extra tungsten correctly to cultivation points and it is often only the farmer who knows exactly where it is needed . The solution of combining wear materials to back up brazed tungsten
Weld-on tungsten-carbide : steel composite tiles have similar wear rates to the brazed tungsten carbide tiles but can be welded exactly where needed . The welding of composite tungsten tiles to compliment brazed tungsten carbide has been proven over 3 seasons to dramatically extend life-time , avoid downtime and allow the brazed tungsten point to give its full performance potential
This could result in end-users easily getting 3- 5 times the working life from tungsten points , and avoids wasting brazed tungsten carbide material .
Ferobide is the trade name of tungstencarbide : steel composite material . It has been proven across Europe , Canada and Australia as being the perfect partner to all tungsten carbide tipped points on plough points , drill openers , subsoiler points , wings and shins as well as power harrow tines .
It is suitable for low-drag cultivation equipment used to reduce soil disturbance to reduce black grass spread .
More information at www . ferobide . com
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