Welding, hardfacing & farm repair · Larkmoor & the four valleys · Since 2009
Broke on Monday. Back in the field by Friday.
Quenchworks is the repair yard behind the grain elevator — hardfacing, agricultural iron, guards and gates, and a mobile rig that runs market days and harvest emergencies. Seventy-ten rod in the wind, wire on the bench, chromium-carbide armour where the ground bites, and a written verdict when scrap beats steel.
The breaker point came off the elevator yard at noon on a market day, armour-laid by Thursday, and the stony ground above Dunrow has not found the weld yet. Quenchworks is the only invoice in the valley my father and I have both signed for forty years.
They told me to scrap the mower deck. In writing, before the invoice — one part in six, they say, and mine was the six. The replacement frame they built has outlasted the deck it replaced by two seasons already, and cost less than the dealership’s quotation.
A load calculation sheet with a farm gate, of all things. The snowplough leaned on it last February and the gate did not care. My neighbour has since ordered the same gate twice — once for him, once for his son.
Services
The numbered card
01
Hardfacing & wear parts — $8–14 / sq in
Plough points, breaker teeth and bucket lips rebuilt with chromium-carbide overlay laid at 90–110 amps of MIG heat — three to five passes of armour where the ground bites. Priced by the square inch of armour, because that is what you are buying and it is the only honest unit.
02
Agricultural repair — $95 / hr + rod
Mower decks, baler frames, chopper spouts. In the field we run 7018 stick, because wind strips shielding gas off wire welds and a field is nothing but wind; on the bench it is MIG at 24 volts. The rig covers Larkmoor market days and all four valleys.
03
Railings & guards — $96–140 / linear ft
Load-calculated to the code’s 200-pound push with the sheet in your folder — hot-dip galvanized for the farm track, powder-coated over zinc for the porch. The same maths for a milking parlour as for a manor steps, because gravity does not read postcodes.
04
Gates & stock handling — from $1,850
Crowd pens, races and gate frames drawn per yard: leaf weight and wind load on the drawing, hinges greased for a decade, and every latch a gloved hand can work in February. Automation conduit framed in for the yards that want it.
Larkmoor
The yard behind the grain elevator
Two bays, a flatwork bench forty feet long, and a rod oven that never cools — 7018 wants its dry heat, and wet rod is how a good welder lays a bad bead. Larkmoor is a repair town before it is a build town: the corn rises in July and the phone rings in August, so the build queue is honest about it and the repair bench always has a slot.
Repaired stronger, or we say replace
Every repair leaves stronger than it arrived or you are told it will not — in writing, before the invoice. About one part in six gets the verdict. It has cost us work every single time, and it is why the valleys keep calling.
The five the yard hears
Asked at the counter, answered in amps
Over the counter, usually with a part on it. If your question is stranger than these, the yard line at the bottom is answered by whoever is nearest the phone — and the rod oven.
Stick or wire for a field repair?
Stick — 7018, run off the rig’s welder-generator, stored hot in the rod oven. Wire needs shielding gas, wind steals shielding gas, and a field is wind with a fence around it. On the bench, where the bays are closed, MIG at 24 volts is faster and just as sound. The setting follows the weather, not the habit.
What is hardfacing, actually?
Armour, laid as weld. Chromium-carbide overlay goes down at 90–110 amps in three to five passes, and the deposits are so full of carbide they check-crack on purpose in a fine checkerboard — that is the armour relaxing, not failing. A breaker point that lasted two seasons before will run six after, and the arithmetic is boring: armour at fourteen dollars a square inch beats a new point every spring.
Why did my neighbour’s gate come with a sheet of paper?
Because every guard and gate we build is calculated for the code’s 200-pound push at any point on the top rail plus fifty pounds per foot along it, and the sheet goes in the folder. When the snowplough leaned on the Wellder gate, the gate was holding paper that said it would — which is a better feeling than hoping.
Galvanize or paint the gate?
Track gates and anything the slurry reaches go hot-dip galvanized, full stop — zinc fused to the steel, decades of it. Porch and yard gates go powder over hot-dip: colour baked at 200°C on top of the zinc. Paint alone is for the year it takes to regret it, and zinc-rich primer is an honest finish only where it never rains sideways.
Can you come out before harvest?
The rig runs market days booked a week ahead, and harvest emergencies jump the queue the morning you call — the whole valley understands the arithmetic of a standing crop. Build work books three to five weeks out, and we say the week at the quote.
Larkmoor & the four valleys, 2025 — 2026
Off the bench this season
Six jobs from the season, photographed the day they went back to work. The shiny edges are armour; the black ones are powder over zinc.
Call 1
The verdict on the phone
Photographs read aloud: repair, armour or scrap, and an honest guess at the week. If it is scrap you hear it now, not after the bench time.
Day 1
Pickup or rig out
Parts that travel come in on the market-day run; parts that cannot come to the yard get the rig, the oven and the stick welder at your gate.
Days 2–4
Bench or overlay
Straightened, rewelded at 24 volts on the bench or armoured at 90–110 amps in the overlay bay — the rod oven running the whole while.
Day 5
The test and the return
Guards push-tested with a gauge, moving parts cycled by hand, and everything back on the Friday run unless the phone said otherwise.
The week after
The check-in call
One call after a week in the field. Armour either holds its edge or we want to know why — that is how the passes got to three-to-five in the first place.
How the yard runs
Broke to back in service
The same five stations every job crosses, whether it is a mower deck on a Tuesday or a crowd pen for the spring. The only variable the valleys add is weather.
The yard, in figures
We will hardface anything in this valley except a bad decision.
The rig runs market days and harvest emergencies · (555) 011-3059 · yard@quenchworks.example
Bring the part, or photograph it where it broke
A photograph with something for scale starts the verdict; the part itself starts the bench. Harvest emergencies jump the queue the morning you call. yard@quenchworks.example