Agmaster

Geoff and Mike Glenn started Manufacturing No-till products developed by Ray and David Harrington 18 years ago.

Initially along with making Agmaster products Mike and Geoff were more involved with promoting the concept and they ran extensive seminar programs through Western Australia.

Then through the cropping regions of Eastern Australia bringing with them excellent farmers and researchers from W.A. to promote this new thing No-till farming which has now become in a short few years the major form of cereal crop establishment in Australia.

As their business was only just starting this was a huge undertaking which had a great result for many farmers who took on this new technology.

In that time the product range has expanded markedly from a simple knife point and single shoot boot that suited the single bolt lower breakout tyne available 18 years ago.

Since then products have been developed to suit nearly every tyned machine used in Australia and the major imported machines also.

Boots have been developed for different soil types and conditions so that today Agmaster can supply seeding gear to work in every soil type across the wheat belt of Australia.

The No-till star harrow was developed over 10 years ago and for the last 8 years after some changes when it went into mass production the product has remained virtually unchanged in its design and is still in demand across a wide area of Australia.

Press Wheels were the next product refined and developed by Agmaster with several years of prototype’s being tested before production started in 2001.

Some of these set’s are still in use after many years of service which is a great testament.  Over the years many improvements have been made to press wheels to make them longer lasting and to reduce the maintenance required on seals and bearings etc.

The newest product is a steel coil harrow developed for wet and sticky sowing conditions.  This fits into the carrier arm etc. of the No-till star harrow and after 4 years has proved to work well across many soil types

Agmaster’s manufacturing facility is located in Collie, Western Australia. Purpose built in 1996 the factory covers 3000m2 and is well equipped with some of the latest technology in manufacturing machinery.

The majority of Agmaster products are produced in-house; however some items that require specialized machinery are outsourced. The steel castings for points and presswheel components are cast at a foundry in Sydney. The rubber tyres for presswheels are also moulded in Sydney. The majority of the company’s tungsten requirements are from England. Plastic products like the rotary star harrow hubs, tips and presswheel rims are all injections moulded in Perth. Most other raw materials and products are sourced from suppliers in Western Australia.

Agmaster employs 5 people fulltime aided by up to 10 casual employees during peak production periods (January – May).

In the factory, where possible, production processes are carried out with automated machinery. This includes:

• Auto-feed bandsaw – for cutting of pipe and RHS
• Robot Welder – used to weld components where possible and practical.
• Plasma Cutter – this machine is CNC controlled (computer numeric controlled) and uses the latest torch technology to cut underwater. Typically plate is cut in 50-75mm of water depth. The major benefits of this are to restrict plate distortion, minimize noise and fume. All parts to be cut are computer drawn and then nested using a specific software program to maximize the plate utilization and minimize waste.

After a cutting program is generated in the office it is downloaded to the machine via a fibre optic cable link. An operator then activates the program and sets the machine going. From this moment the machine is self managed and generally requires very little operator support. Fast, clean cutting is then achieved, e.g. 10mm plate is typically cut at 2500mm/minute (just over 40mm/second).

• Profile Cutter – CNC controlled similar to Plasma except it has 4 oxy LPG cutting torches.
• CNC Lathe – for machining of components.
• CNC Twin Pallet Milling Machine – allows the operator to unload and load one pallet whilst opposite pallet is being machined. All knife points are machined in this machine to produce an optimal surface for tungsten application.
• Heat Induction Units – designed to provide uniform, consistent heating for tungsten application.
• The factory has also numerous other punching, cutting, bending and purpose build machines for processing components.