Kooima® Ag Services

Kooima® Ag has a variety of things to offer. Follow Phil Kooima – the owner of Kooima® Ag – as he talks about some of the services we offer along with our ag replacement parts.

Phil has spent over 30 years in the laser flat cutting and laser cutting of two business. He has now transitioned to a new facility where he will be focusing on additional laser services specializing in direct metal deposition, 3D laser cutting, laser welding and laser cladding. Let’s go a bit more in depth on each of those services.

Laser Metal Deposition

We are going to cover laser metal deposition. Laser metal deposition is a process using a laser that we can deposit tungsten carbide onto wear surfaces. Laser metal deposition (LMD) gives us a very finite control. We can do highly detailed surfaces. An example of LMD is a stationary cutting instrument that has been CNC lasered and we will now apply a high carbide tungsten coat using our high tech LMD lasers. This is done to extend the wear life of the instrument; we complete this process here at Kooima® Ag.

Another form of LMD is direct metal deposition (DMD) process using a CO2 laser. These parts go through the same process of laser cutting, milling and then coating. The coating is, again, a high tungsten carbide that is applied to the cutting edge to extend the wear life. The advantage that Kooima® Ag gives is we can do broad areas and deposit a very high efficiency tungsten carbide that extends the life 2-3 times as long. We offer a technically superior process. Laser Metal Deposition is very efficient. It is environmentally friendly because we are using greater percentages of the product, and this will adhere directly to the part. To finish off this part, we will grind the cutting edge with our high precision CNC robotic controlled grinder.

The final example is a ground engaging ag tool. This is another fine example of the DMD application. Traditionally, the old way would have been to weld some large carbides on the edge to extend the wear. What we have done instead is apply a nice, wide band of high carbide material to extend the wear life. We can control the wear pattern on an application like this. We have been doing this for several years now. Our real world experience extend the wear life of this product by 300%.

Laser Welding

Let’s talk about laser welding. Laser welding is a very fast and efficient way to accomplish high detail welds. We have been seeing applications for stainless steel and carbon steel welding. This is a growing part of our business here at Kooima® Ag.

An example of one of the products we have made is a fertilizer tube. The fertilizer tube has 4 welded components. With our lasers, we can weld this at 1/4^th the time it would take to do it manually or with a wire welder. Basically, we weld all of the stainless steel components together. Fit up is very important. We spend a lot of time ensuring that the fit up of the parts is proper.

This comes from our experience. We have over 30 years of experience in flat laser and laser tube cutting. Kooima® Ag brings a high degree of expertise to you. Our team of engineers can help you with any of these applications.

Laser Cutting

Finally, let’s talk about laser cutting. 3D Laser Cutting has many advantages. It allows us to add holes in finished parts that may have been missed in production. A fine example of 3D Laser Cutting that we have is a formed tube. Our customer brings us the tube, already formed, and we cut features into it. The features have to be added in after forming because they lie too close to the bend radius. This means that they cannot be cut prior to the forming.

Metallurgy Lab

At Kooima® Ag, we have our very own metals lab. We also employ a degreed metallurgist, Zak. Zak is equipped with high tech machines to cut and polish samples of metal to look at under his microscope. He cuts and polishes these samples to look at the laser welding, laser cladding, or the direct metal depositions to assure our customers of the quality and repeatability of your products. This information is available to you – our customer. We track it during the process and maintain the records for you review.

Check us out for any of these processes! Send your emails to [email protected] or call us at 800-522-8874. We would be happy to have a conversation with you!