Bellota Duratop with Tungsten material. A profitable investment

Wear parts are a real headache, especially for farmers who work a lot of fields, because we have to spend money on spare parts and consumables and have them ready when they are required. Manufacturers, especially Bellota brand, are investing to improve these wear parts to be able to provide an ever longer service life. Then, tungsten material has been playing a part in this evolution for many years now. It is true that this material has been used for many years, but it is not yet used on a daily basis by farmers, especially in small and medium-sized farms... we imagine that is due to its high cost, which if you evaluate it is not as high as it may seem when you make the purchase. We will tell you about our experience.

For years, we have been using the Bellota 1513-A C2N CP DURATOP cultivators and the sensations can't be better. As you can see in the pictures, we fix this type of cultivators in the middle of the arms of our Ovlac Minichisel cultivator and started working to see the wear and tear compared to "normal" cultivators, such as the Bellota 1513 A C2N (with a point more than 22 mm thick and 85 mm long, with sweeps designed to wear away). The durability is quite remarkable because we have changed several times the normal cultivators and the Duratop cultivators are still unharmed/ intact... it seems incredible. On this occasion, we are going to incorporate the new model 1513-A C2N CP cultivators to the rest of the arms, which are made up of 13 tungsten plates and a reinforced neck, with the tip plate standing out for its large size (the previous 1513-A C2N CP had 12 tungsten plates as you can see in the photos).

Our opinion and suggestion to farmers who want to try this type of cultivators but are not able to see if it will be cost-effective in the long run is:

• Try to put only on arms that go behind the wheels of the tractor (because they work on the harder soil) and with that setup start working. 
• See normal growers wear out but Duratop growers "keep going," like the famous batteries that last and last.

Once you pass these tests, you will see that the investment in Duratop with tungsten material is more than a profitable investment because in addition to the consumable, it saves on screws, maintenance time and headaches.

Versión en español.

Factory (II). Ovlac

Last summer we visited the Ovlac factory in Venta de Baños (Palencia). Since we bought our Ovlac mini chisel cultivator in the year 2016, we were looking forward to visiting the Ovlac factory. The ovlac staff always told us that they were waiting for us whenever we wanted to go so we could see the entire manufacturing process. So last summer we did the visit and spent a very interesting morning as you can see in our photos and video. 

Ovlac is a leading Spanish manufacturer of soil preparation equipment, consisting of a family company dedicated to the manufacture of agricultural machinery since 1936, now has its third generation. Ovlac currently has a staff of around 80 professionals and modern facilities of more than 20,000 square meters. It has state-of-the-art construction techniques and its own Research and Development department, resulting in high quality implements. Ovlac exports about 60% of its production to more than 20 countries, where quality assurance is an essential requirement, such as the markets of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and other countries such as Chile, South Africa, New Zealand and China. 

 Below you can see Ovlac's portfolio of implements, all of them for soil preparation:

• Ploughs
•   Reversible mounted
•   Reversible semimounted
•   Conventional mounted
•   Conventional semimounted
•   Xperience
• Shallow Ploughs
•   Mini-S (semi mounted Mini)
•   Mini-N
•   Mini
• Cultivators
•   XLander GC
•   XLander
•   Versatill
• Disc Harrows
•   Maxidisc II
•   Eurodisc
• Vineyard
•   Reptill
•   Minichisel Vineyard
•   Minivid

Returning to our visit, one of the things immediately caught our attention was that we could record absolutely anything we wanted. We were not limited in any way and that the entire factory was at our disposition. As we were told, there were no secrets there, just a desire to work and do things well... you can see it in our video and photos. 

Regarding the factory, everything is very methodical, and the manufacturing process is very rigorous. This process goes through different phases or stations from material reception, machining, welding (mostly robotized), painting, assembly, and dispatch.  Another thing that caught our attention and demonstrates the exquisite treatment they give to the manufactured implements is that the implements are kept indoors all the time until they are shipped... it is a detail that we liked very much. We encourage you to watch the video where you can see the whole manufacturing process. 

We take the opportunity to thank the people of Ovlac and especially Jorge (Manager) for the friendly and cordial treatment they gave us during our visit. Thank you very much.

Versión en español.