# AR steel wear bar



## MtnCowboy (Dec 20, 2009)

Last winter I plowed my gravel road (1 mile) without using skid shoes. The rib welds on the 60" Warn plow ripped off/a rib punched through the moldboard; the push tubes twisted and the wear bar wore down to the bolt holes, meaning the blade wore down too; and the bottom of the hollow push tubes ground away, leaving a 3/4" wide/16" long gap on the bottom of each tube... and I lost a spring.

The reason I didn't use skid shoes is that the pads on both busted clean off at the welds. I asked Warn if it would at least replace the lost spring; the Warn rep said no.

So I took the busted plow to a friend's shop and his guy welded/fortified the hell out of the blade and push tubes ... and I found the lost spring after the snow melted. And a month ago I picked up a beefed up wear bar fabbed by one of our fellow plowsite members "Tbar" when I was in Montana: it's not only more substantial than the Warn bar, but also has AR steel welded to the ends. I would have liked to have seen AR welded across the bottom as well, but there is no doubt that the ends of the bar wear faster than the rest of it when used on gravel.

This is supposed to be a La Nina winter so I should have ample opportunity to test Tbar's handiwork.


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## hoskm01 (Oct 17, 2008)

What you should consider is the "hardness" of the metal you're using.

I have custom bars made by a local metal guy with a 480HB level, where your stock bar, mild steel, carries less than 200HB. There is probably a local metal distributor that can sell you the size bar you need and your local metalsmith with a good waterjet can fab for you. They dont end up being cheap (stock bars are what, 20 bucks?) these will run you 60-100 bucks, depending on quantity you purchase.


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