Air seeders, cultivators and implement frames: blasting before spring in Cypress County

Seeding and tillage equipment works in soil for a few intense weeks, then sits outside for the rest of the year. The paint takes abrasion in the field and weather in the yard, and by the time it is a few seasons old the frame is scaling at every weld.

Where implements lose their paint

• Shank mounts and the toolbar, where soil and stone scour the coating.
• Welds and gussets, which rust first on every frame.
• Hitch and wing hinges, where grease, dirt and water collect.
• Air carts and tanks, on the top surfaces that take the sun.

Strip it in the off-season

The time to do it is after the equipment is parked in fall, with enough of the winter left for repairs and paint before seeding. Book it late and you are racing spring. More in preparing implements for winter storage.

Blasting finds cracked welds and thinning steel while there is still time to fix them — not halfway through seeding.

On your yard

A wide implement does not road well and is not worth a float bill. The rig carries its own compressor, pot, media and water, so we set up on your ground and take the spent media with us. Heavy frame steel is blasted dry.

Across Cypress County — out past Seven Persons, up toward Hilda and Schuler, or down around Dunmore — the same pattern holds: the equipment is parked from harvest until the ground is ready, and that parked stretch is the window to strip and repaint it.

Does it pay?

Clean steel and fresh paint protect the frame and help when it comes time to sell or trade — does repainting change what it sells for? Line up primer and paint before the blast, because bare steel flash-rusts quickly.