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Arctic Army Roll Call: The Evolution of The DoubleDown!
487 Plays4 days ago
The guys welcome back the team from Arctic Snow and Ice Control Products, Lucas and Blake Strait, as well as Nick Stewart and Jeff Sexton. The guys take us through the history and updates of the DoubleDown Salting Bucket from its inception all the way to the current Gen 3 version!
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts' Reintroduction
00:00:16
Speaker
Get ready to go She ain't moving slow She's taking control Pushing the pedal through the floor I'm begging for more
00:00:32
Speaker
Here we go, Snow Jobs Nation. We are off and running again with another episode of the Arctic Army Roll Call brought to you by Arctic Snow and Ice Products. As always, you know who I am. i'm talking to juice box guy.
00:00:44
Speaker
You know who's with me. I'm one of the baddest motherfuckers of all time. i'm One of the best singers. One of the best looking motherfuckers you've ever seen. Hold my drink, bitch. Steve and Jeremy back again. What's up, Jay? It's just another night. Steve-O, how about you? That's it. Arctic Army. Here
Introduction to Arctic Snow and Ice Products Team
00:00:58
Speaker
we go. Another night.
00:00:59
Speaker
Doing it. Doing it. All those of these release in the morning. So I guess today we call it whatever. Yeah, we're recording at night, so. the Good to be back with the Arctic boys yet again.
00:01:12
Speaker
so we'll just get right into it, right? You know, today we're going to get after it. ah we're Listen, we're lucky enough again to have like the whole nucleus of Arctic, the whole big name crew.
00:01:24
Speaker
They're all here. they're Again, they're all here for us. All right. We have co-owner Lucas Strait. We have co-owner and mad scientist of Snow Products, Mr. Blake Strait. We have Jeff Sexton, who runs the factory and basically the Zen master of how everything works in there. And he's a little stressed at the moment because it's like Santa getting ready for Christmas, getting all the snow products out there. right then And then we have ah the COO of Arctic Snow and Ice Products, Nick Stewart.
00:01:54
Speaker
And big thanks, as always, to Chief Marketing Officer and co-owner Spencer Strait for getting these guys in the same room for us, getting everything hooked up sound-wise, and we are ready to roll. So
Inception and Motivation Behind Double Down
00:02:06
Speaker
ah the gang's all here today, and they're go to they're going to give us the rundown on the evolution of the Double Down, the Arctic Double Down.
00:02:13
Speaker
How's it going? are you guys? Doing well. Let's do it. Let's do it. Jeff looks like he's done. He wants to kill something. Let's get this. Let's get this going. on it You know are on it. Yes, sir. yes Bring the energy.
00:02:29
Speaker
So ah we're here to talk Double Down today, right? What's going with the Double Down? so Why did you guys? what was well Obviously, everything Arctic does is for a need for Arctic the Snow Company, right? All the products are based on a need you guys had. So talk about that.
00:02:44
Speaker
How did you come up with the Double Down? Why
Early Development Challenges and Solutions
00:02:46
Speaker
did you come up with the Double Down? Take us through it. So back in the day, dad wanted to create a product that would allow him to bid on properties that weren't necessarily inside of our zone of operations or too far for a salt truck to reach in his zone, but didn't command enough dollars on the contract to justify a dedicated truck to salt it.
00:03:09
Speaker
So he wanted to utilize something that was already on site, which was the equipment. And he needed something that could go in the front of a skid steer, a compact wheel loader, or a front-end loader that would be able to accomplish that. So he set out, Jeff, what was it, like eight, nine years ago?
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, every bit of. next On that mission. 2016, really? I think so, yeah. Yeah, if not sooner. Wow. Yeah, when was that sculpture? The year before that. Yeah, for him to go. he had he set out to create a product that would do that.
00:03:41
Speaker
And my dad being my dad started with the hardest top-end offering of that product, which his desired goal was to be able to independently control the left and right spinners and auders and the – oh, I already said left and right.
00:04:01
Speaker
yeah You said four things. i'm tired It's been a long day. at and but he the spin He wanted to be able to control the and spinners independently. from the cab of the machine so he didn't have to get out. Very much like salt truck. You don't have to get out of the cab to adjust it or control it. You can just do it all from inside the cab. So he had set out to create a salt bucket is what he called it. and back then there was no there was no such thing.
00:04:26
Speaker
It was very much like when he created the sectional, it was fixing the problems that he had with traditional products on the market. And that's what he he did. ah We started off with that bucket was fully electronically controlled from the cab.
00:04:40
Speaker
I remember getting pictures and videos when I was at college from Blake and Jeff and my dad of these existing hydraulic blocks that we were trying to use for proof of concept just being split in half because the amount of hydraulic flow and pressure that a wheel loader creates.
00:04:58
Speaker
And that was kind of
Evolution and Market Adaptation of Double Down
00:04:59
Speaker
like the first big roadblock, if you will, was trying to find something for proof of concept that was on the market that would take the power that a wheel loader can produce from, you know, hydraulic fluid is flow. 40 3000 plus PSI. Yep.
00:05:14
Speaker
three thousand plus psi ye Not a lot of off-the-shelf components. Pretty much none. So yeah it became quickly obvious to them that they were going to have to set out and get something made for it. And Blake, correct me if I'm wrong, that was kind of one of the big projects that you started working on was trying to find a company that could make that.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah. Well, also in dad fashion, ah Jeff could connect with this pretty well, but my dad decided to go out and buy a hundred buckets worth of parts. We're talking about a large amount of money for our, for our low flow and high flow variants, um, and pay them, uh, very soon into the process.
00:05:59
Speaker
yeah, the first, the first gen double down while we were handing a lot of parts, uh, made it all work together very well. Um, added a few features I think people liked strobe lights, floodlights, uh, full control and within the cab.
00:06:14
Speaker
Um, the we'll talk about this kind of where the product's moving, where it's been. We did start. ah We started actually where the product probably will end up one day. We started way too advanced.
00:06:28
Speaker
This thing was going to have geofencing capabilities. And this is back in, you're talking about 2016, 2017. And that was Gen 1? That was Gen 1. Geofencing? Yeah. So this was going to be- Just jump right into it, boys. My dad hates the idea of people stealing.
00:06:44
Speaker
He has this idea of inefficiencies and he's like, I don't want this bucket to work if you go off of my property. He's like, I actually want it to turn off if it's spread. He was having me look into hydraulic weight systems for wheel loaders and that so that the bucket would turn off if it's spread enough salt.
00:07:03
Speaker
And he was like, this is everything. and the system he found and the companies we worked with, this is all something they could do. That's where the product started. Yeah. yeah We had to reel it back a little bit.
00:07:15
Speaker
ah What gen are we at now with the double down? I would say this is gen... Seven? What are you holding? We had the welded... We had the welded gens.
00:07:28
Speaker
um All the first prototypes. Spencer is saying three. We had all the prototypes and then we have all the prototypes with our custom hydraulics. Then we have the whole bolt together version and then we have the bolt together version simple now. So yeah, probably three or four.
00:07:47
Speaker
And we add the word simple. it we are We rebranded it as in double down used to be the top line. And then we actually made that the double down plus.
00:08:00
Speaker
And then we stopped supporting it. And then we pulled the Double Down name into what's the Double Down Simple is what we call it. So we've kind of, I think we've worked our way into where the market kind of needed us to be with that product, which is you hook it up, you turn it on, it works. You don't need a wiring harness. That's kind of what the market's ready for. And we are seeing that too, um because we have what,
00:08:21
Speaker
My dad refers to as a trifecta. So we have a manufacturing company that makes and events snow products. We have a company that uses those products and services accounts. So we have a company that moves machines.
00:08:32
Speaker
So we get to see the industry from a lot of different lenses and vocal points. Absolutely. And what we saw was people running fleets with our double down. It was an absolute pain in the ass to manage the loaders that they were getting in and the skit steers that need to be outfitted for these double downs and harnesses and the quick, the hydro quick coupler that we had on it. um So it just, it became a thing where like, well, this thing, it does a really good job.
00:08:59
Speaker
But sometimes the customers just want a plug and play option. They
Logistical Challenges and Simplification Efforts
00:09:03
Speaker
don't want have to keep track of us serial number of loader and make sure that it doesn't get sold or gets sold the right way or it gets on unoutfitted. So...
00:09:14
Speaker
watch yeah One of the things that we saw in the service business was from servicing out of state properties that clients here in Chicago asked us to assist them on.
00:09:25
Speaker
And one of the projects that i oversaw was upfitting those units out of state. and it was actually my client to oversee forced to removal as under my portfolio.
00:09:36
Speaker
And one of the things we realized is like, look, we have two machines on these properties. And if one goes down, we need to be able to run the bucket on both machines. So now we're updating both machines with harnesses and hydraulic couplers to run this bucket.
00:09:49
Speaker
So that started to be, you know, it quickly showed us in person the logistical nightmare that could become. And how nice would it be if we didn't have to do that? So that was kind of like the starting process. the the spark that showed us like, hey, this product is very advanced and it does what it needs to do But the drawbacks of if you have a failure with your machine becomes quite apparent very quickly. And when we're bidding on properties that a double down is useful for an overwhelming majority of the time, it's going to be a site with multiple loaders, multiple skid steers and so on. So if I have one loader go down, being able to hook up the bucket to another wheel loader,
00:10:29
Speaker
without having any additional parts involved became, it became necessary. yeah So that's where we started to draw back to saying, Hey, all you need to do on this machine is hook up your two hydraulic couplers and then go and so if the machine is newer, you can control the flow rate of the machine, which we're finding guys are having the most success between 25 and 30% of flow. And then being able to adjust the valves because every machine is different. I can tell you,
00:10:58
Speaker
from taking calls on guys that were having issues with their buckets in the field for our service company, or they were running on a different machine that night, said, hey, you know, i ran in on these settings the other night, on this other machine it was perfect, but on this machine it's not. i'm like, yeah, because not every machine's identical. And just a a small change between the flow of one machine to the other means you're gonna have to change your auger and spinner settings.
00:11:23
Speaker
So it there's a lot of information that goes into that, so.
00:11:29
Speaker
That's crazy. So where does it stand now? Like, I mean, compared to where you started, you like kind of not reverse engineered, you kind of forward engineered it. Like you started with the most most complicated version first. Now you've, uh, you've simplified and simplified. so down Yeah. Where, where,
Material Choices and COVID-19 Impact
00:11:46
Speaker
where does the double down stand in today? Yeah.
00:11:49
Speaker
That's a good way put it. Um, it stands as, uh, uh, what would the word be? Um,
00:11:57
Speaker
It's just simple. You hook up and go. Yeah, it's just two hoses that hook up to the third valve on your machine, then all you have to do is just adjust your auger and spinner speed. Yeah, so the both sizes come with standard half-inch body flat-face connectors. You're going to see that in every skisier, every mini loader.
00:12:13
Speaker
Some wheel loaders, probably not, but it's there if you need it, or you could put on whatever... Quick coupler is your heart's desire. um But yeah, you're pretty much just looking up to, it still has slip, what I would say is slip hitch technology, as in you can use any of our HD slip hitch couplers for the three yard bucket. Now, obviously there's no slip in it. We lock it out, but you don't have to stock a different type of coupler for this. It's going to take their legacy part. So that helps.
00:12:42
Speaker
You know, the skid steer is universal skid steer plate. So that's going to do your skid steers and most your mini loaders. That's pretty easy. It's, you know, it's universal. The HDs are, you know, we have a whole catalog of HD couplers. And this bucket isn't devoted to one thing. Just like our pushers, you could take the couplers off. You could put on a GRB 416, an 18, a Volvo 120, a Hive is, whatever you want.
00:13:07
Speaker
um And it coincides with our current part catalog. But other than connecting to it and connect connecting the couplers, there's a one main valve that controls your auger speed, and then that feeds into the spinner valve that controls your spinner speed. So you're controlling auger and spinner independent of each other. You just don't have control any anymore of left to right side, and you don't have lights.
00:13:28
Speaker
Gotcha. But what we found out is that more people cared about something that they hooked up to, and it just worked. That's what they really – at the end of the day, they wanted to look up to it, and they wanted to fire up the hydraulics.
00:13:41
Speaker
And the thing started spreading salt. That's what they care about most. Yeah. A hundred percent. So you have an HD version, which is what, three yards and eight and an LB version, I'd call it, for like a skater, a mini loader. And what's that, one yard? It's a one yard. What do you guys do?
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah. Nice. So fits everything. We have a three material options. We kind of go through the history of that. Back in the day, they were all – my dad was obsessed with this color.
00:14:09
Speaker
It's now doubled on green. He was looking for like this highway, high-vis yellow. And he had the hardest time finding it, but he landed on this green color, which is actually what the first Razorback was painted because we had it. That's how going that day. Yeah, that's what we were painting that day.
00:14:25
Speaker
That's how the first Razorback got painted. Wasn't the story, it was like a snap-on toolbox color that didn't take, so they had a bunch of or something. It was like something crazy like that. My dad has a way of talking to people and yeah finding the root of something. It's crazy. Some hunting buddies of mine have seen this and they look at me and be like, dude, your your dad could just talk about anything to anyone.
00:14:50
Speaker
like It's crazy. I'm like, yeah, trust me. Try living with him. It's not that crazy. But the buckets all started green paint.
00:15:01
Speaker
And then we rolled into powder coating and we had to take a bit of a break. um And actually, we couldn't the one year we switched to galvanizing, we couldn't paint. We just had absolutely no capacity on our paint line ah to do buckets. We were an old batch style system. I think we've talked about before. Our powder line upgrade was massive.
00:15:20
Speaker
um But back then, we had to make the decision to coat them another way. And that was galvanizing. So we worked with a pretty nationwide company to galvanize them. um Slight price increase, which I think was the perfect thing. It was just a little bit more expensive because it costs us a little bit more, but it gives you this really robust finish.
00:15:38
Speaker
Right. um You know, maybe the fittings and the nuts and bolts on the bucket are rusting they're starting to rust, but the bucket itself isn't decaying. Right. It has a very good finish.
00:15:51
Speaker
And then we moved into the top of the line, which was stainless, um which was hard to move. And, you know, we'll talk about this, too, because stainless pricing was crazy. Talking about COVID and the effects it had on the steel market, especially the stainless steel market and availability.
00:16:07
Speaker
um But those are like the three main options that we've always supported. ah for the what we call the simple double down line. You get it powder coated yellow now, not green.
00:16:18
Speaker
You get it galvanized or you get it in a 201 LN stainless. yeah That's got to make Jeff happy with all those options on the line. It's a lovely day hes lovely day. Just imagine anything you do daily and just times by three for no reason. yeah oh my god Are there any plans to pare that down to like you know just doing stainless or just doing randomized?
00:16:43
Speaker
good um Yeah. So powder coat, um almost no one buys it. You know, it's a night. It's nice as an affordable option if you really need it, because I think we've priced it well.
00:16:55
Speaker
But a lot of people kind of see they're like, man, this is not going to know. I could give you the world's best powder coat. You're this is a salting bucket. Yep. You got a couple of years on this thing. Right.
00:17:06
Speaker
Then they see it as an investment. And our number one mover is galvanized by far. ah and It's been a great value. um It's a good price and it's good quality product.
00:17:18
Speaker
um Talking about COVID, there's two points here. One of them is COVID was probably the nail in the coffin for the first gen double down. um We were already testing the second gen, what we call a simple.
00:17:32
Speaker
and then we started working with our suppliers to re-up our inventory for the next year. And they were actually telling us that they could not support the product. um And that just bolded us. That was like, the okay, you know what? Now we really have to yep move directions. Right.
00:17:48
Speaker
And everyone knows how COVID went. You couldn't get anything you couldn't get toilet paper right and that's pretty standard you still have companies claiming supply chains i'm trying to save money right steve things are getting better but um i mean that supplier though to blake's point the one that did the electronics their primary business model was ambulances fire trucks and tow trucks so when the snow guys picked up the phone and said hey we need to order some more they looked at us they said ah deeper your pockets we've got customers lined up for the next two years and we're like, oh, yeah, not government money. They literally they told us we need a blank PO.
00:18:28
Speaker
they did say like I'm like, I'm not giving you a b blank PO. The cost could go up 3X. What was it that Dan said? It's hard to remember the quote. I think it's something like, fuck off. I can see Randy saying that. can totally see that. but I think that's what he said. so The second point of COVID was steel pricing.
00:18:50
Speaker
um Now, stainless was just, at least for us in our market, was hard to get. it was very expensive. It was hard to get the end user of the products at a price that made sense. If you could get the material.
Benefits of Simplification in Design
00:19:04
Speaker
The first couple of years we offered stainless, we did not take any more that money. That cost increase was put right the price, and we took zero more profit on that product just to get it out.
00:19:16
Speaker
That's how expensive stainless was. Yeah. When I walked through the factory and I looked down at a stainless plate, it says made in Japan or made in Belgium. It wasn't a price point thing. It was where you could get it. I mean, yeah. no Everything...
00:19:30
Speaker
considered pharmaceutical grade stainless went to big pharma. It went to syringes. It went to the food industry. We couldn't even get our hands on So we got 304 stainless or 316, right? It became pretty expensive, pretty hard to get.
00:19:46
Speaker
um What like a 400 grade, we weren't even thinking about that. um Couldn't get it too expensive. We found some good stainless suppliers. Now we found a ah pretty good stainless.
00:19:57
Speaker
That's called 201 LN. It's actually pretty strong, which is nice because people worry about stainless being a little softer. This is not. yep um Now that things are cooling down with COVID and we've found the right suppliers, we can get this at a pretty good price that if we...
00:20:12
Speaker
Think about making pretty much all the double downs in this material. We could come close to a ah galvanized price, right? So that's what we probably see in the future. Simplify the process, um standardize it a bit, and then... Going on all stainless. Yep. And then at the end of this, then the customers get the best thing, right? They get all stainless product and you lose a little bit of the price, right? It's not going to be as cheap as galvanized.
00:20:37
Speaker
Definitely not going to be as cheap as powder coat, but in aggregate, it I just told you, we had almost no one buy powder coat. yeah And we could really get close to that galvanized price and move a lot of units.
00:20:51
Speaker
Does Jeff polish the stainless in so it's polished nice and Jeff going polish? Same way I do my head. There you go, Jeremy. Mirror finish.
00:21:02
Speaker
So you basically, you just explained the the switch from the electronics to the hydraulics. Was your dad okay with that? Considering like that first generation with the electronic controller was his baby?
00:21:15
Speaker
It took a bit of... good It was like a three-year process. I would lock the door at the factory and just kept them outside. I was the main driver.
00:21:27
Speaker
i Being out of college for like a full year and that really being integrated into the company, I saw the struggle that it was when something isn't just standardized.
00:21:39
Speaker
the The more you can make it almost like a pallet where you pick it up, you move it, you drop it, you strap it like it's easy. Right. That's why it has a lot of strapping points. It has areas to hook on to everything standard where you pick it up, how you use it.
00:21:53
Speaker
I try to standardize it. I could not do that with a normal bucket. And then on top of that, include ah supply chain issues. um So he wasn't happy about it um I don't think he at first, you it's a bit of a pride thing. He felt like we were taking a step back.
00:22:08
Speaker
ah He doesn't like to step out from a challenge, you know, my dad likes winning. um But I think in the long run, it's the decision that I think, you know, makes sense. We're selling a lot more them this way.
00:22:19
Speaker
It's easier for us to support them. um They're more reliable. They're way easier to service too. Oh yeah. Way way less service. Yeah. Way less parts. Yeah. But the performance, you don't give up anything in terms of yeah performance. You're still going to throw salt under parked cars. You're still going to throw salt between 40 and 80 feet wide, depending on your granular.
00:22:38
Speaker
You're still getting all the benefits of it, but you're not getting any of what could be considered cons, depending on what your company is set up to do. Yeah.
Maintenance Practices and Product Sizes
00:22:46
Speaker
You lost lights and lost strobe lights and...
00:22:51
Speaker
um Spotlights, which, yeah, sucks. But, you know at the end of the day, the machine now has a ton of lights on it. Yeah, the machines are lit up like spaceships now. And there's things we could do to help, you know, down the line that we've come up with some ideas.
00:23:04
Speaker
And you lost the left to right adjustability. We really found that almost no one was taking full advantage of that. My dad... We call Randy's world, you know.
00:23:14
Speaker
Randy's perfect. Randy's perfect world. where he is listening to these? You guys are going to get in trouble. Does he listen to these? good You should hear about Randy's infinite wisdom treasure chest. Yeah. He will agree with all this and know his faults.
00:23:31
Speaker
if That's awesome. You want to consider it a fault. But he's like, well, the operator, of course, can turn the spinner down and they can go really slow over a sidewalk. And then the sidewalk guy doesn't have to do it. My dad, that's a a lot of training.
00:23:44
Speaker
yeah That's a lot of putting your faith in someone on not to just completely destroy landscaping with salt. And so it... Like we said, we started with the hardest thing and we worked our way back to something more realistic.
00:23:59
Speaker
i mean We had to meet the needs of the market and what people really saw value in. Yeah. And I think that was, I mean, I think that was a common knock. Like I've never used ah a double down, but I think that was what I heard most when that was coming out five, six years ago was that it was too complicated.
00:24:17
Speaker
that controller The controller itself was too complicated to understand. There were too many moving parts, basically. that Too many things that could go wrong. And guys wanted it simpler. So you guys have done that. So hats off.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. guys you ah Off the shelf. Our hydraulic controls are off the shelf, right? Our fittings are off the shelf. Our motors are somewhat off the shelf. um We try to do as much off the shelf as possible.
00:24:40
Speaker
It just helps us keep the cost on it. It keeps the supply chain open. I don't have to order a custom manifold with a custom control system six months out, which makes it a little bit more streamlined, makes a little bit more reliable. Well, don't forget, the supplier is going to be two months late on their six months out. No.
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah. no yeah Oh, yeah. light think oh we're all We're all snow guys, so we like everything simple. I mean, we're all in the worst conditions. So, you know, simpler the better. just It just has to work. We'll put her down and call good.
00:25:09
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, it it is simple. does work, but i don't we shouldn't knock it. The geometry of it and how it spreads was very well thought out. Absolutely.
00:25:19
Speaker
The way you could see from it, you have good visibility. It holds a good amount of salt. ah The way it attaches to this machine works very well. It does the job just very well. I mean, Dad drew it on a drafting table in his living room, so I'll give him credit where credit's due.
00:25:33
Speaker
He drew it on a drafting table. so So that's a step up from the original sectional drawing that was on a napkin. Yes. yeah yeah All right. There you go. So yeah he elevated his game to drafting table. I love it.
00:25:46
Speaker
We do improve right here. Durability it is pretty for scooping. Everything's all good. and i mean, we get, yeah, it's the same thing about loading a salt truck.
00:25:58
Speaker
Don't scoop into a pile of salt when it's 20 some odd degrees outside and you have a frozen layer and then just dump it on top of the grates. And now you got to get a guy up there to get all the chunks off. Otherwise your grates are going to fall in eventually.
00:26:11
Speaker
You need to bust the pile up of the machine in the bucket and then flatten it out. And then you need to get to that softer salt to load into that double down bucket. Yeah, we did spend a lot of time working. Like I mentioned, the R&D program.
00:26:24
Speaker
For the Razorback, the first one we kind of really done was with a customer up in Canada for the double downs. And he really helped us develop ah the three yard simple double down and really big machine proof it. I'd say he put on some loaders. I don't think he told us he was going to put them on.
00:26:44
Speaker
Well, mean, yeah, you still do a little bit of common sense. Yeah, but we... We stress tested did it. And Nick's right. You need some common sense. But what it boils down to is you're going to hire a guy. You're going to pay him to sit at 2 a.m. And he's going to use this bucket.
00:27:00
Speaker
And sometimes he doesn't give a fucking fuck about that bucket. Yeah. He's going to mangle that fucking bucket. He ain't paying for it. Yep. And then... then you have a mumbled bucket, right? So that's how the story goes. So yeah, we really spent a lot of time a couple of years ago, ah really getting that product ready for just a little bit of abuse. Now, can you break it? Yeah, I could break it within a minute. A lot of people can. You could run your car into a wall if you want to.
00:27:26
Speaker
um But we try as hard as possible in a normal use that you can scoop into the thing. We're not really going rip it apart, right? Yep. So you guys are currently doing a three yarder and a one yarder. That's it.
00:27:39
Speaker
Yes. Yep. Okay. So one yarders for skids and compacts and yeah the three yarder is for what size loaders? What poundage are we going up to? So minimum poundage on that three yard is going to be that 25, 26,000 mark. Okay. Then larger.
00:27:56
Speaker
ah Typically in snowmobile industry, you don't see a lot of wheel loaders larger than 45, 50,000 pounds. you know, that's kind of that targeted upper range.
00:28:07
Speaker
Uh, you know, if you want to use a bigger loader to salt, it's going to be pretty costly and inefficient parking lot at times. So I don't want to amend it. We actually is talking about sizes. i don't know if we really brought this up, but back in the day, Lucas and I did a lot of market research on different size machines.
00:28:26
Speaker
Um, we
Factory Output and Readiness for Snow Season
00:28:27
Speaker
went off of uh,
00:28:29
Speaker
full tilt, tipping load capacities, operating capacities. We put together entire spreadsheet, what was on the market, what people use, what it could handle safely, right? Because the thing people do is they like to pick the bucket really high in the air to get a better spread width.
00:28:46
Speaker
And you actually have to consider that as a working case, right? you know What can the machine actually do like that? And we originally were going to do four sizes. um We took some time out to figure out that actually all we ever needed was two sizes.
00:29:01
Speaker
um The second size would have been way too close to the first. It would have made no sense. would have confused people. And the fourth size would have been massive. And loaders that people don't use for snow removal.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:29:15
Speaker
That's awesome. So how's the factory doing on these? Keeping up to your orders and stuff? Everybody's orders going out? Orders are definitely going out. Our bucket department is full of buckets right now at this point in time, as well as the yard. So orders are coming in. It's definitely starting to take real good route as well.
00:29:33
Speaker
Same as what the Razorback has. so Yeah, I think ah they just called for the first North Dakota snow this week. So that's got everybody thinking. Parts of North Dakota getting actual plowable snow.
00:29:46
Speaker
All right. I'll take That's what the weather dude said. Where are you hearing that? I'm not a weatherman. I'm a meteorologist. I'd appreciate a little bit of respect. Excuse me. Can I go to you guys?
00:30:01
Speaker
There's no snow in a forest. Yeah, that's what they said. It's like 90 degrees today. The seven day out. The seven day outlook. No, you must be smoking. All right, Blake, but do you want to take us through the um the hydraulic changes? the We hear you made some changes to the hydraulics, the the fittings and stuff.
00:30:18
Speaker
You want to take us through some of that? Yeah, nothing crazy, but sometimes the devil's in the details. um We had a lot of customers having issues. I don't want to lot, but we take it seriously. um Having some GIC-style fittings just come loose, having issues keeping those tight.
00:30:35
Speaker
Sometimes if you over-tighten them, Um, then you kind of just completely ruin the fitting. And I think that was happening as a fix. Uh, but we move everything to what's called an O-ring face seals, uh, style.
00:30:49
Speaker
Not
Improvements in Hydraulic Fittings
00:30:50
Speaker
like the one where the O-ring is on the threads, like at the bottom, but it's actually, in a groove, right? The head of the fitting and it butts up against the female. Um, there's just a little bit more vibration proof and a little bit more full proof. So that's what we moved to. So now everything.
00:31:06
Speaker
on the bucket hard line, soft line. I was moved to a O-ring face seal um in the spring. And actually the only fitting that isn't an O-ring face seal now is the one at the end of the hose where you choose what hydraulic cover you want to put on.
00:31:24
Speaker
ah That's an O-ring boss seal still. It's a normal hydraulic fitting. we got oh I guess kind hydraulic nerdy, nothing crazy. Just so it's, you know what a case uses.
00:31:36
Speaker
okay That's what that most of their fittings would be at all-wing face hill. Got you. Blake or whoever wants to talk. What do you recommend for guys doing once they're done with the you know they're done using the double down for the night? What do you recommend? they put the hoses together or how do you maintain it? What's what's good maintenancesh maintenance programs you want guys to do with them? Obviously, they're salters. so Yeah, so that's like a two-part question. You have your in-season use and then you have your post-season use. So during the season, just make sure the bucket does not have salt in
00:32:08
Speaker
The number one thing that we run into with guys in the field is that they get lazy. They want to go home and go to bed. Hey, I get it. I've done it for years. I understand it. But when they come back out at three in the morning and there's a little bit of salt left in that auger and it jams up when they turn the bucket on and it fills the hole, the drop ports for your spinners, you're done the water.
00:32:30
Speaker
So make sure guys, if you're using your double downs that Just like the spreaders for your trucks, get all the salt out of them. Make sure you don't have ah you know frozen chunks of salt in the grates because when you go to pick up salt with that bucket, it's gonna shove that frozen ball of salt into those grates and put a lot of force on them over time and you can you could have issues. Again, it's just like a salt truck.
00:32:54
Speaker
You wanna clean it out and you don't wanna have salt in your grates. Post-season, I would say that this is not a recommendation. I would say this is 100% necessary, is you need to be bringing these buckets back as quickly as possible from the last time you're salting and you do not believe you're gonna be bringing that bucket, you're not gonna need that bucket again. You need to get it back to your facility. You need to rinse it out.
00:33:20
Speaker
You need to take the panels off of it that gets you to your motors. You need to rinse it out. You need to use a salt ah neutralizer, eliminator, something to get the salt off of there, rinse it off. And then my recommendation is to coat that bucket with like a WD-40 or a fluid film-like material to keep the oxygen off of any residual salt.
00:33:41
Speaker
And you need to apply a small amount of grease, a heavy industrial grease that, you know, you would use to grease a skid steer or a wheel loader or anything like that.
00:33:52
Speaker
And
Servicing and Customer Feedback
00:33:53
Speaker
just apply it on top of the seals where the shaft for your auger motor meets your auger. place that over that sha of that shaft seal and then do the same on your spinners. And that will keep, again, it just keeps that humid air and that moisture off of your your seals. Yeah, your shaft seals, if you don't take care of them, mark they're what's going to go first.
00:34:15
Speaker
That's all great information. Yep. you work or not We run into the same exact thing with our Swenson boxes for all of our trucks. um our shafts feel for motor crap sound here we try as hard to handle the bucket to prevent that we actually manufacture our own uh we call it a sacrificial seal that all the motors have bolted on top of them so we have the seal that you see from the bucket on the spinner auger is actually the man the seal we make and behind that behind the mounting plate is the actual motor seal so we have our own to try to mitigate that but you still get corrosion
00:34:52
Speaker
um You want to keep that clean. Also, the auger coupler that connects the auger shaft motor to the auger itself, that is greasable.
00:35:03
Speaker
um It is greasable 100% to keep it from seizing. So it is full stainless, right? um But things, you know, the auger isn't stainless. Sure. So it could start to pop. The motor shaft is not stainless, so it could start to pop and swell, and then will lock that on.
00:35:19
Speaker
So, you know, shit happens. You shear a bolt on that coupler because you left salt in it and it froze and you go to fire up 40 GPM through this bucket and you run it through the auger.
00:35:32
Speaker
She ain't stopping, right? She's probably going to get that coupler, right? You got to get that old coupler off. So we put grease zerks in that coupler and we put grease zerks in the motor, the spinner couplers that mounts the spinner motors.
00:35:49
Speaker
That way you can keep those grease so that when you do eventually probably have to work on these or replace the motor or something, that comes off easily. That's something we learned the hard way, by the way. Yeah.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah. yeah How do you mean let me replace my spinner motor? How do I get the spinner off? It's stuck. Well, now you got to cut it and now everything's wrong, right? So that was something we came up with. just It seems weird because, it's like well, this is just a bolted coupler. It's there to keep pumping grease in that over time so it doesn't grow together.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah. yeah one of the You know, we just from using them ourselves, we just want to make it as easy as possible that if you have a failure, whether it's our fault or it's a manufacturer's parts fault, it doesn't matter.
00:36:31
Speaker
At the end of the day, you've got a problem and you have to get it fixed quick. So how do we create a product that gives you that? And, you know, a lot of people ask us, why do you guys mount the motors for the spinners on the bottom?
00:36:43
Speaker
And we say, because if something happens to your spinner motor, you don't have to tear several panels apart, get all these bolts off of a product to get at a very condensed space to try to get large wrenches and sockets and impact guns into to tear this thing apart, hoping that it's not rust welded together, right?
00:37:02
Speaker
So we mount our motors on the bottom so that if you do have a failure after several years in the field and you need to get that operational again, it's as conveniently placed as possible. It's all about time because snow removal is 100% all about the time you have. You don't get it back. You just know, hey, I have X amount of hours.
00:37:20
Speaker
I got to get back in the game. After that, there's no more time. A thousand percent. Absolutely. so So let me ask you if we almost is probably going to happen. A guy leaves salt in there. You're not supposed to, but you know how guys will do.
00:37:33
Speaker
And it is it easy to clean that thing out? Can you take the grates off, get in there and dump it out and chisel it out if you have to? Or is it a process? Um, so from what we've seen and what we've had to do in our own business is open your grates and then get windshield wiper fluid and start dumping it on the salt and then start getting small, uh, you know, crowbars or hammers or something to get, to break that stuff up. That's what John uses a lot. That's what I've had to do a couple of times.
00:38:02
Speaker
And it, it, again, it kind of goes back to things happen. Guys forget or they're tired. It's just, it's this stone removal business. is rather unforgiving or let's say a bucket does shear ah the auger coupler because salt ah frozen it or because it just had a failure things happen or the motor failed and now the buckets full of salt right you're gonna have to have a way to get that salt out of there and from what we've seen to go to the gas station start buying gallons of windshield wiper fluid is are dumping it on there wait a while maybe 30 minutes and it should start breaking up
00:38:39
Speaker
It's an oddly specific example because it's exactly what we've had to do. The machine breaks and you got a quarter bucket and it's going to be there for a couple of hours. And if it's cold, cold, again, is's there's just so many variables that can come into play that you don't necessarily have control over.
00:38:55
Speaker
But service and maintenance is one of those things that you can control and it really helps your success rate when you need it the most. Almost. 100%. ah a plurality or a majority. So over 50% of the salt buckets that I have to get very heavily involved in fixing or having service calls on or going on the field, the customers, they're a complete mess inside.
00:39:19
Speaker
They have salt everywhere should it be. It looks like the thing has never been cleaned out. We try to instruct the operators as much as possible. When you're done with the bucket, you got to dump it and spread it like three times, right?
00:39:31
Speaker
Because when you dump it the first time, you get the salt out. But there's these shields that cover the port, right? Because when you're scooping, you got to think the salt's above the spinner. And there's a big shield that keeps that salt from actually getting through the spinner unless would just continuously flow out.
00:39:48
Speaker
And it feeds the auger. Then the auger feeds it over to the spinner chute, right? So when you first dump the bucket out, you dump all that salt out. And that salt that was almost to the spinner dumps into this shield, right? And then you pull it back up or upright.
00:40:06
Speaker
You've got most of salt up. but You actually just dumped a ton of salt right where it shouldn't be. And now it's stuck there. So you got to do this a couple of times. You have to run the bucket, dump it, run the bucket, dump it. And then the thing's pretty cleared out.
00:40:18
Speaker
But just taking care of the thing and knowing how to use it, knowing how to adjust it with flow, knowing what it requires, is it's most the battle, I'd say, with people having issues with them. Gotcha.
00:40:30
Speaker
And when I say issues, it's it's pretty small scale. on So we have a lot of these in the field. And like I said, we take it pretty seriously when we have issues. I'm talking about three customers in the year that I have to be involved with to get them up and running. Right.
00:40:45
Speaker
It's not crazy, but we take it all seriously and we take everything as if everyone's having issues. Amen. Love it. Got anything else for these guys, Jay? Any other questions? I don't think so. think Yeah, they answered all my questions.
00:40:59
Speaker
guys got anything else you want to cover for the double down
00:41:04
Speaker
um yeah if you're if the listeners can give us feedback on the finishes what finishes do they really see the value in and if they like stainless and they don't see a need for another product galvanized is great but it does have some manufacturing challenges And it kind of can be a pain to deal with at times. So if we can go all stainless, is that something people want to see? And if we can make the price point what it needs to be to achieve that, is that, you know, what do people think about that? Let us know.
00:41:35
Speaker
Okay. We'll get that out on the socials. We'll put that poll up. Absolutely. Jeff will polish them, right? No Are you going to knock on the door tomorrow morning, Jeremy?
00:41:48
Speaker
um I'll answer it. I'll answer it. I'm ready. Cool. Anything else, boys? We're going to wrap it. What do you want to do?
00:41:59
Speaker
Let it snow. Let it snow. Amen. Amen. As my father always said, he hoped it snows so much that small farm animals die.
00:42:11
Speaker
ah That would be a good t-shirt. great That's a great t-shirt. That's a great t-shirt. Oh, my God. all right, gang. We had another sticker.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. One more sticker. All right. Well, if you guys are good, then we'll wrap it there. Cool. Yes. Yeah. Thank you for your time. Appreciate Thank you guys for coming on. We appreciate you guys doing this again. It's a, it's great to talk to the whole group. That's for sure.
00:42:40
Speaker
But yeah, we'll wrap it there then that'll do it for this episode of the snow jobs podcast, Artic army roll call. right, again, thank boys for the time and for all that info. If you guys have questions about the double down and you need further that wasn't answered on here, reach out to Arctic. They will set you straight.
00:42:57
Speaker
That is it, boys and girls. We are out, gang. Have a great weekend. Think snow. Keep pushing.
00:43:23
Speaker
I feel bad.