Thinking of buying one tomorrow and was wondering how it worked and lasted quality wise. I'm looking at it for fertilizer and lime spreading and very little to no seeding.
As long as you take care of it, the ones at tractor suppy will give good service. They key to maintaining a spreader is to ALWAYS clean it out thoroughly after each use, especially if you used it to spread fertilizer. I'm sure you realize how corrosive that stuff can be on painted steel. Rinse it out good, then use something to neutralize the fertilizer. We have one at the hunt club and we usually rub it down really good with a rag soaked in diesel fuel. Keep a check on it and test the moving parts to every so often to make sure they don't freeze up on you from the corrosion. Especially if you let it set up over the winter.
My concern is that it's a tractor supply brand spreader and not king cutter, I keep remembering those gray tillers they were selling last year. I recall seeing cosmo brand at one of their stores.
Picked up the spreader today, it turned out to be a king kutter. But I wouldn't be surprise me to find out that a cosmo spreader was identical. So far it works well.
The only time I have got to use my Cosmo 500 spreader was to seed a few acres of eroded pasture. First spread a full hopper of barley to help hold the soil, followed by 11 lbs of a bluestem grass mix. I was impressed with how evenly it distributed both kinds of seed.
I'll second the Fluid Film suggestion. I use it on my lawn fertilizer spreaders and it works great. Fluid Film is available at John Deere dealers, or through many dealers on the web. It comes in aerosol cans as well as gallon cans. Google it and take a look. It does everything they say and then some. I love it and use it on everything from battery posts to snow blowers to leather boots! It's a natural lube (lanolin) and it does not have solvents that evaporate after applying. One nice thing about it is that it stays put, and does not run even when applied to a vertical surface. Strange stuff but it protects like nothing else I've used.
kubota L 3540 hsdc,B 2320 hsdc & lots of other stuff!
Fluid film is the best lube (anti corrosion) product EVER! I have been in the lawn fertilizing business for decades, its been an ongoing battle to control fertilizer corrosion on metal as well as salt corrosion on snow equipment. Fluid film is revolutionary, try it, you will love it! I gave away a case of liquid wrench and all of my wd 40, fluid film blows them away!