Stainless steel mouldboards'

[Pennine Ploughing]

would mouldboards' made out of Stainless steel be any good, or would soil stick to them

 

[Fergie Ploughman]

Difficult to know without trying. I would imagine they would be very expensive to make. What do you see as the benefit ?

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

just wondered why it has not been done, is the reason cost, or something else

 

[Fergie Ploughman]

I would say cost is the prime reason, stainless is significantly more expensive, even compared to fancy hard steels like Hardox, RQT, etc

 

[Boohoo]

There isn't much that sticks to my stainless steel spade. Couldn't imagine stainless boards being cheap and I'm not sure how they would wear

 

[arcobob]

you can buy a decent stainless spade for under £40 and a mouldboard may be two to four times the metal content say £150. Double it for small scale production cost and it is not expensive compared to new Kristeel boards.

 

[arcobob]

See attached

 

[Boohoo]

See attached

In summary stainless has a higher resistance to wear than mild steel but has a lower resistance to wear than the specialist abrasion-resistant steels.

 

[Howard150]

See attached

Interesting tables Bob. You would need a degree in metallurgy to understand it in its entirety but Table 2 contains the acid proof of hardness
For the stainless materials the best are 201 which gives you 193 hardness whilst 430 gives you 180 hardness - quite low in the grander scheme of things.

Ransomes bolt on points were round about 460 hardness whilst some of the new materials available go over 500 hardness. Some of these materials also benefit from 'work hardening' in that they become even harder after being subjected to work.

What has not been considered on here so far is the way that Kristeel mouldboards are hardened. That is only on the face. This is why when a mouldboard wears through it looks as though it is made as a laminate. What this in effect does is give a super hard face on a flexible backing. This in turn makes it the perfect combination which is very hard wearing and flexible enough to withstand the forces and shock loads generally imposed on mouldboards.

Spurious mouldboards are generally much softer and much more flexible which is why - in general - they do not compare remotely with the real thing.

 

[arcobob]

Interesting tables Bob. You would need a degree in metallurgy to understand it in its entirety but Table 2 contains the acid proof of hardness
For the stainless materials the best are 201 which gives you 193 hardness whilst 430 gives you 180 hardness - quite low in the grander scheme of things.

Ransomes bolt on points were round about 460 hardness whilst some of the new materials available go over 500 hardness. Some of these materials also benefit from 'work hardening' in that they become even harder after being subjected to work.

What has not been considered on here so far is the way that Kristeel mouldboards are hardened. That is only on the face. This is why when a mouldboard wears through it looks as though it is made as a laminate. What this in effect does is give a super hard face on a flexible backing. This in turn makes it the perfect combination which is very hard wearing and flexible enough to withstand the forces and shock loads generally imposed on mouldboards.

Spurious mouldboards are generally much softer and much more flexible which is why - in general - they do not compare remotely with the real thing.

That is broadly the conclusion that I came to so it tends to imply that the alloying of chromium is the cause of the problem. It is unbelievable that an alloy is not available to do the job or that the hard facing of Kristeel cannot be analysed. KV and others with good quality steels must have found the answer and patented the process but this can surely be analysed and copied in some form. Genuine Fergie boards are not bad but they certainly seem to break much more readily than Kristeel due to the lack of a laminating process.

 

[tomlad]

I've plough bodies that have worn in a odd way . Layers . Laminate as you say .interesting.

 

[Fergie Ploughman]

As far as I know, they were laminated weren't they? I thought it was a high carbon soil face section forged together with a more milder middle with a stronger rear giving it flexibility for shock loading, but high wear resistance. The hole lot was pressed together with lots of heat, fusing the different layers, then pressed into shap. When you wear through the front face, it then wears the middle quicker, showing the laminated effect. I think it was called triplex or something....it's probably on the net. I went around Rabewerk years ago and saw something similar, probably pioneered by the men in Ipswich...

I may of course be talking bollox ;-)

 

[arcobob]

As far as I know, they were laminated weren't they? I thought it was a high carbon soil face section forged together with a more milder middle with a stronger rear giving it flexibility for shock loading, but high wear resistance. The hole lot was pressed together with lots of heat, fusing the different layers, then pressed into shap. When you wear through the front face, it then wears the middle quicker, showing the laminated effect. I think it was called triplex or something....it's probably on the net. I went around Rabewerk years ago and saw something similar, probably pioneered by the men in Ipswich...

I may of course be talking bollox ;-)

Or Botox. I am sure you are right but one thing puzzles me. Those TCP boards that appeared on TFF are called Kristeel but are cast. I think I read somewhere that Ransomes got a bit carried away and called everything Kristeel that they wanted to promote !

 

[Howard150]

As far as I know, they were laminated weren't they? I thought it was a high carbon soil face section forged together with a more milder middle with a stronger rear giving it flexibility for shock loading, but high wear resistance. The hole lot was pressed together with lots of heat, fusing the different layers, then pressed into shap. When you wear through the front face, it then wears the middle quicker, showing the laminated effect. I think it was called triplex or something....it's probably on the net. I went around Rabewerk years ago and saw something similar, probably pioneered by the men in Ipswich...

I may of course be talking bollox ;-)

Sorry to disappoint Charlie but Kristeel mouldboards are definitely not laminated. It looks that way because of the hardening process. It is only the wearing face which is hardened. Once this wears through the the softer layer underneath wears through fairly quickly.
What seems to be so special about Kristeel is the depth which they managed to harden it through. This is at least 3mm - around about half way through.
Whoever sorted this out for Ransomes did a pretty good job as far as material technology is concerned.
Probably the best materials technology ever put out by Ransomes because let's face it their legs and frogs were dire. Neither would stand the underlying limestone rock which we have in this part of Yorkshire without bending either out to land or down over.
What a blessing in the late 60's when we changed to Bamford Kverneland ploughs which would plough without bending and had shares that lasted an age before they needed to be changed.
Only downside was the KV used to stick. Kristeel never did this

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

was Kristeel boards not made up with a good quality mild steel mixed with molly chrome and glass along with couple of other things thrown in to the melting pot, hot rolled out into sheets, stamped out to size, hot pressed to shape and holes punched out then quench in water while still held in the former mould with still pressing pressure, then they were treated by passing an electric current across the wear surface, this caused immense heat, and also chemical element change on the wearing surface, and only did the top 3 to 4 mm of the board, after cooling they were put on a jig, and a very big grinder worked to polish the wear surface to a smooth and shiny finish,

 

[Ley253]

The blue book, ransome and their tractor share ploughs, I think is the title, gives quite a bit of detail on Kristeel, it was developed by an outside firm and taken up by ransome, the last place to make it was the Welsh steelworks that were taken over by Dowdswell. I am sure the book states it was a laminating process, and if the face is 3 mm thick, I can see no way that could be achieved with out plating, or building up with a welding process, metal sprayed perhaps. If so, it would still be a form of lamination.I dont have access to the book at the moment so cant give chapter and verse.

 

[wilt434]

 

[Howard150]

View attachment 246784

I stand corrected!

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

View attachment 246784

well it blows out of the water what I was told,

 

[Fergie Ploughman]

I also have that book, didn't think to look in it to confirm what I thought! But I was pretty sure they were made by laminating steel. You wouldn't be able to case harden something to that depth without a lot of work, case hardening is generally very thin...