3 Ways Thermal Spray Can Help the Agriculture Industry

Agriculture and farming are essential to the American economy and lifestyle. Billions of people rely on the midwestern states, known as the bread bowl, to provide their everyday sustenance. With fewer and fewer generations continuing in the family business of farming, optimizing farm has become more important than ever. Finding the right technology is paramount in helping farmers and equipment manufacturers create the best harvesting and planting equipment at economical prices. Thermal spray technology is one of those solutions. Thermal spray is a coating process that applies metallized coatings to the surfaces of machine components to enhance their performance and service life. Thermal spray coatings can help prolong the effectiveness of farm equipment by fighting wear and abrasion, protect components from corrosion, and restore damaged parts to OEM specifications.

Prevent Wear on Ground Engaging and Threshing Elements

From ground engaging equipment to threshing elements, thermal spray coatings can help increase the wear resistance of surfaces. Tungsten carbide and chrome carbide coatings can be used to increase the productivity of threshing elements such as rasp bars or concaves by prolonging their effective service life. Ground engaging surfaces can also benefit from wear and abrasion resistant coatings by creating a harder contact surface on cutter bars and header prongs. Spray and fuse technology can create metallurgically bonded coatings to meet the needs of equipment used in highly abrasive environments such as buckets and scraping blades. In addition to wear, many of these coatings are also corrosion resistant.

Corrosion Protection for Agricultural Equipment

Corrosion is the ever-present enemy of agricultural equipment. Not only is this machinery exposed day in and day out to the elements, but they regularly encounter harsh chemicals from chemical treatments and fertilizers. Thermal spray can apply a corrosion resistant coating over the top of aluminum and carbon steel components, such as spray booms and plow bottoms, to fight against corrosion and create a barrier. Thermal spray can also apply sacrificial coatings such as zinc or zinc aluminum to keep the corrosion from effecting the underlying surface of the component. Wear and corrosion damage can be prevented with thermal spray but sometimes life just happens.

Part Remanufacture for Agricultural Equipment

When parts do fail, whether from wear and corrosion or something else, thermal spray can also be used to build the surface of components back up to OEM specifications. After the damaged sections have been removed, thermal spray can build up the surface with stainless steel or other material and even overlay it with a carbide to prevent future wear damage. All of this can be machined back to down to precise size and surface finish. A thermal spray remanufacture can not only add new life to a part but extend its life by engineering wear and corrosion resistant surfaces.

Thermal Spray Solutions for the Growing Agriculture Industry

Overall thermal spray can make agricultural components last longer at peak performance and restore worn or damaged components back to peak performance. Whether through metallurgically bonded spray and fuse coatings or mechanically bonded thermal spray coatings, this technology can protect and enhance components such as spray booms, hydraulics cylinders, augers, and more. Contact us to find out if thermal spray is the solution to your agricultural wear and corrosion problems. We can help you investigate your wear and corrosion problems and discover if thermal spray is the right fit to meet your needs.