It consists of many carbon steel discs, and sometimes longer-lasting boron steel discs, which have many varying concavities and disc blade sizes and spacing (the choices of the latter being determined by the final result required in a given soil type) and which are arranged into two sections ("offset disc harrow") or four sections ("tandem disc harrow"). When viewed from above, the four sections would appear to form an "X" which has been flattened to be wider than it is tall. The discs are also offset so that they are not parallel with the overall direction of the implement. This arrangement ensures that the discs will repeatedly slice any ground to which they are applied, in order to optimize the result. The concavity of the discs as well as their offset angle causes them to loosen and lift the soil that they cut.
