Tractor Spacers

About the Tractor Spacers

A disc harrow is a row of concave steel plates threaded onto a single axle, and the spacers are what hold those plates apart at the right interval. They were consumable parts: farmers replaced them as they wore, and the old ones went into a corner of the yard by the bucketload. That is why they turn up in numbers, and why almost every one carries a different pattern of wear.

As objects they are unexpectedly good-looking — a thick cast collar, a machined bore, and a surface that has been polished by soil on one face and left rough on the other. Stood on end they make honest candle holders for a taper. Stacked, they become a bookend heavy enough to hold a shelf of hardbacks. Laid flat they work as trivets for anything short of a hot pan.

They are cast iron or steel and they will mark a soft surface, so put felt pads underneath before they go on a polished table. A light coat of paste wax stabilises the surface rust and stops it transferring to hands and cloth. Beyond that they need nothing; these things were designed to spend their lives in the ground.

Spacers are sold individually and are heavy for their size, so postage is calculated by weight rather than volume. Buying four or six at once is far more economical than buying them one at a time, and in practice most people want a set anyway — the effect only really works when they are grouped.

One practical note on identification. Disc spacers are often confused with plough bushes and with the collars off seed drills, all of which look broadly similar in a photograph and none of which have the same profile in the hand. A harrow spacer has a distinctly concave face on one side, worn smooth by soil, and a flat machined face on the other. If you are collecting them rather than decorating with them, that asymmetry is the thing to look for.