Spaldings is celebrating 65 years of being in the business of supplying spares parts to farmers from its Lincolnshire home.
Originally founded in 1956 by Ernest and Godfrey Spalding, they first offered wood-turned items such as hoes, syches and brushes.
10 years later a group of seven local farmers recognised the potential of the company and bought the business from the Spalding family.
The company ceased to produce wood-turned products and concentrated instead on selling tools and replacement machinery parts.
The next three decades saw a steady growth in turnover, with several moves being needed to accommodate the expanding business.
In 1993, a new ground-care division was formed, concentrating on the sale of professional grounds maintenance spares to contractors and local authorities. This division is now a central part of the company.
There then followed a series of buyouts by various companies before the Japanese investment group, Marubeni, acquired the business in 2012. It is now a sister company of Komatsu UK and agronomists, Agrovista.
Wearing parts
Up until 2000 the company focused on replacing wearing parts on a like-for-like basis. However, it saw a place in the market for a brand of quality parts that could match, and often surpass, that of the original manufacturers.
In January of that year, Spaldings launched its SPL Ultra range of replacement wearing parts which it described as “hard-wearing soil-engaging components for commonly used cultivators, subsoilers and tine seed drills”.
This was on the back of a significant investment in new manufacturing facilities and a new team of engineering staff based in Lincolnshire.
Their brief was to create soil-engaging components which maintain their original shape and provide effective soil-cultivating performance for as long as possible.
The component’s design was based on detailed analysis of wear patterns by the development engineers on both OEM and non-genuine wearing parts. One common feature of the products was the use of tungsten tiles to protect the soil-engaging surfaces, where they were most vulnerable.
Such areas typically include the leading edges of points and wings, and to underpin their effect, ribs and serrations were strategically placed to help ward off collateral wear to the underlying component.
It is claimed that the SPL Ultra components can last up to eight times as long as some basic items fitted by the original manufacturers.
Additional material and hard-facing techniques help maintain each component’s shape and form, with accurate manufacture ensuring a good fit to legs and tines.
Adding ever more layers of metal would certainly help prolong the life of the component but would also add to the weight, draught requirement and expense.
The first implements to benefit from these components naturally included the company’s own flat lift subsoiler, but machines from Keeble, Horsch, Great Plains and Vaderstad were also catered for.
Spaldings at Cereals 2021
The range has been greatly expanded since and at this year’s Cereal 2021 event Spaldings will be celebrating 65 years by placing a FlatLift subsoiler at the heart of its exhibit.
It will befitted out with various examples of company’s wearing part portfolio, including replacement shins, points and wings.
The exhibit will also emphasise the company’s distribution agreement for original Grimme parts and its role supplying Tillso subsoiler and cultivator parts.
This includes the unique multi-component Sabre tine system designed for effective soil loosening and re-structuring.
Steve Constable, managing director of Spaldings, sums up the intention of company at the show as “to focus attention on the various lines of replacement wearing parts we offer, engineered for performance as well as longevity with the strategic use of strong base materials and wear-resistant technologies such as durafacing and tungsten tiles”.
Also on show at the event will be the latest addition to the SPL Ultra range in the form of a Rear Subsoil Point for Keeble Progressive cultivator/subsoilers which has 16mm thick, 127mm (5in) wide, soil-lifting wings and tungsten tile leading edges behind a projecting point with tungsten tiles on the face and sides.