FIRST LOOKS at a new snowplow

said there's guys putting them on F650 looting them down with salt lighter faster stronger better and then smashing them into curves and trying to stop them with the plow hey Elon Musk you got a cyber truck you want us to test this out on I will make a special plow if he's willing to do it man if we had as much snow as we've had rain I would have be I'd be sitting pretty [Music] all right good morning one and all guys we are in Chicago we are at arctic's corporate headquarters and we are going to be doing some major changes to the Razer back the boys at Arctic never stop working on these things and today we're also going to get to see a sneak peek at something that they've had in development for over 3 years but I don't want to give it away yet we're going to pull this one off upgrade this one and then hopefully talk to the Arctic boys and convince them into letting us see what they've got coming down the pipeline [Music] all right boys let's go check out what the Mad scientists at Arctic have got cooking sorry for the shaky camera uh so we got Blake over here he's one of the chief R&D officers and in fact he's the one that him and his brother were the ones that first invented the uh the Razer back and now you've got some new changes coming to the Razer back right yeah we do okay are you ready for him yet not yet okay all right we'll come back to you the runway if you haven't seen that yet Arctic what you guys don't know is Arctic is one of the largest equipment Sellers and they're not a dealer in the world they have they bring in hundreds and hundreds of New pieces of equipment every single year so here's where all of the Arctic snow plows are actually manufactured right in Illinois and it starts out with cold steel coming in this door to a finished plow going out the other door now you want to see actually how one of these Arctic plows are built I did an entire video showing it from start to finish but this is just a quick tour of the [Music] factory found you what's up man all right guys I'm here with Lucas and Spencer you guys want to introduce yourself tell these guys what you do yeah I'm the vice president co owner here at Arctic products uh CMO and then also a co-owner at Arctic products okay so now you have made this plow lighter faster stronger better yes is that right is that a good way of saying it yes it is so you guys never stop so the these are the team you and Blake I remember introducing me to the Big Green ugly monster five years ago that was the original Razer back that I you forced me to never talk about that was so difficult did not look nearly as sexy no no no no no but the thing is I guess the point is is you still haven't stopped developing it and in fact you've made quite a few major changes and we've got a couple sneak peeks but one of the sneak peeks that I want to show them I'm going to show them right away okay one of them is right here so now you guys have your own controller will you hold that for a minute yes we do okay so now you said off camera that this controller has all of the good stuff in it yes it does what does that mean it means we put the money where it needs to be so the controller would be reliable it will last a long time we didn't cheep out on the circuitry or anything like that it's we want it to last is it better than other guys controllers out there we are going to find out but I have a feeling it's going to be okay well that's and when he says that I I firmly believe them on stuff like that um so the main changes structurally when I say you've made this lighter and stronger you've done two things to do that one you added weight where you needed weight but two you took weight a way where you found out it was actually inhibiting the functions of the snow plow yes so what we've done to add weight where we needed it was we've braced the frame here and here you guys will see the crossbars a little later on and then what we've done to take some of the weight out is we've actually shortened the wing okay and what you'll see is we've cut the top of the AR plate off here and put a a qu inch aluminum plate in we've short the pin and then to also make sure that we still have that strength and added rigidity we've changed from a manufactured hinge where it's AR plate and a pipe we've changed over to a cast iron uh it's a casting for the hinges so they're going to be they're same weight but they're a lot stronger because it's one piece let's go back to the frame why did you modify the frame just to be completely honest like through our testing over the years we've we've never had creep or bending on our frames and We've ran these on f50s that are loaded down with 4 and a half yard spreaders transfer tanks and all that the trucks are heavy we have not had an issue but we have been seeing some customers having issues so what we did is that we came back and said all right where can we brace the frame to make sure that we stop seeing these issues cuz it it's not always a perfect test when we test something you go they go out into the wild and people put them to the real test we want to stand behind the product off camera LCA said there's guys putting them on F650 floating them down with salt and then smashing them into curves and trying to stop STP them with the plow is that pretty much what you said yeah it's kind of what I said yeah hypothetically hypthetically so that is really it for that extreme situation you added weight back in but you added now 30 lbs more into the plow yes before you started to subtract weight and when you modified the wings that's really where the weight reduction came in and by lightening those wings up you found that you're getting a better trip on the wings themselves yeah so we lightened up the Wings in aggregate for both sides 130 lb so the plow is 130 lb lighter when we modify the wings it does allow the wings to trip a lot easier because they're lighter now so the issues that we were seeing with them being so heavy we've been able to alleviate those issues okay so now this plow is almost in the same weight rating close to what a western wide out or yeah it's getting closer to a white out XL yes but then it's actually could be considered lighter than some of the vpls when you start sticking extra Wings on those vpls and things like that is that accurate statement that is accurate yes okay okay so now you're kind of fitting into that cozy middle ground that guys are getting a little bit more comfortable because putting the extra weight on the front of a pickup truck is something the guys were just like I don't know if I want that much weight on them so you did you took measures to to compensate for that to any dealer that we sold Razer backs to what we did is we did a rb1 bulletin which is the specific bulletin and we sent all the hard wearing kits out to those dealers so anyone who purchased a razor back from that dealer would be able to reach out to them and get their new hardware and get it replaced well what was the problem what did you guys have so we experiencing some inconsistencies with the grade five Hardware from our supplier where some we're having failures on some plows and having no failures on others are you talking about here yeah so these bolts that hold the plates the wings to the hinges were just shearing we don't know why so what we've done is we gone back we recreated the process inh House of that happening and then we've also changed the material and we've changed the procedure in house for torquing to make sure that there is no over torquing but we were able to rule that was not the problem it was just the material itself was the problem okay yeah the hinge what did you change about the hinge itself now you went with a forged hinge it's a forged casting yeah so a forge casting yeah so they're one piece how why is that better well when you're welding AR plate it's very difficult to do because it has to be hot in some cases so we have a hardened pipe we're welding a hardened material to it and then the other issue is that they're EAS if they do experience a failure it's easier for them to fail right because it's a manufactured part where there's inconsistencies in that kind of manufacturing where we can have a hinge casted forged it's the same every time and then it gets machined so it's perfect okay so it takes some ambiguity out of the manufacturing process what about stops did you change something on the stops on the plow yes we released a new um stop uh basically a frame stop to that will bolt on to uh the plows lift frame and it will stop the frame from lifting too high which can we stop it impact you could see yours here the impacts from the chain and the lift cylinder cuz your frames coming up so that bum that bump stop stops that okay and the biggest change we're not going to show him yet I know we're going to let Blake reveal that one over in his his section we'll go over and see how he's doing in a minute yeah I think they're going to like that a lot but let's just get this plow put back together cuz we're going to disassemble this one put all the new hardware on it and then send it back down the road on my trailer with me right yep hopefully for a winter full of snow finally be nice to have one man if we had as much snow as we've had rain I would have be I'd be sitting pretty all right let's uh let's come back to this here they're assembling the new side wings that go on the plow [Music] the Arctic snow plows are completely modular so if any section gets damaged or needs to be replaced you don't have to replace an entire plow you can replace a mle board you can replace the you can replace everything these these things can be completely rebuilt in fact I have one of them that's over 28 years old that we found lying in the weeds that we rebuilt using the existing parts that are available today so they retrofit forward and backward [Applause] [Music] all right so we've got all of the changes made and we opted just to swap out the entire frame from the A-frame right yes it was just easier in our in this case since we're here for a sake of time for your time it's just easier if we just swap the whole uh A-frame forward section so now here's the new Wing that we were talking about and you've got half of the cylinder just like you had before because we used to have the cylinder all the way up to the top yep the PIN for the the wing yep yep um so this is where you lightened up the load right there yep so we we cut down the length or I should say the height of the wing where it's all a plate and now we have/ qu in aluminum um the reason we can do this is because this is just going to be making contact with snow as it pushes snow into a pile it doesn't really see any load or any stress uh we have the new forged hinges that we were telling you about with the better Hardware so same weight but a lot stronger so and then you added weight back in in two spots yes so we added supports for the frame for clients that are having issues where they're tweaking their frames mhm um again it's not something that we were able to see when we were developing the product for 5 years and when we were showing you the plow off camera that we've had in service for 3 years for trade shows and and the filming that we do with you and we didn't see an issue so was this the plate that you added in right here yep we added those two front ribs into the frame okay what about the bump stop so here's the bump stop yep so this is our updated Bump Stop just to stop the uh plow frame from contacting the cylinder it's actually a common problem with the OEM Arrangement too where they even offer OEM bump stops so yeah what people don't know is Western actually offers a bump stop for their snow plow but they don't Market it they don't really talk about it and people are finding out after they bend their cylinders or their their frame mounts or they're having an issue that's how we found out about it when we have our Western so okay yep what happened well we didn't know that they made this Bump Stop kit that was an optional extra and so when we were experiencing issues with our plows we go to the dealer and say hey what gives they're like oh well you need to buy this kit we're like well we didn't know anything about this and now we've damaged our product and we wish it would have just been told to us from the beginning or sold with the plow we think in our opinion that was a design flaw okay so here is your bump stop right there yep okay that just so when you push into a snow pile it will make contact with the A-frame and it limits the range of motion of the plow so you can't smack the uh the cylinder with the frame okay so that is pretty much all of the the the upgrades that you guys have made this year to the razor back but we did promise the audience a sneak peek at what Blake is working on and he's still over there working so I think we'll give him some time to work and we'll go load this up on the trailer yep and uh then we'll come back and see how he's coming along yeah we'll get her load it up all right all right you guys I promised you something that nobody has ever seen before because this is the very first prototype this is kind of like that point where I was at like 5 years ago when you guys were first building the razor back and you brought me into the back room now you guys are getting brought into the back room and shown this this is your brand new baby you just finished putting this together 5 minutes ago you literally helped us yeah few minutes ago yeah yeah yeah yeah this is awesome all right so open up that inside and show let's show show these guys what you're doing and explain to me what we're seeing Here Blake okay so here's an interesting side story about Blake that he did not tell me actually Nick one of the other Engineers told me this now Blake is one of the owners he's one of the Arctic boys and he does have a degree in engineering but back when he he was in college getting his degree in engineering he built a vehicle that went 984 miles on one gallon of gasoline I am not joking I can't make this stuff up the entire shell of the vehicle he handcrafted out of carbon fiber so when you look at what these Arctic boys are building there's a lot of brain power that goes behind the this craft yeah so this so if you can't tell already this is our full truck plow kit not a retrofit anymore but inside the pump house in here it's fully sealed with a door um you got pump manifold separate there'll be a few hoses this is the you know one of the first steps of the prototyping phase so right we'll get this one done and then we'll be building a a good amount for a fleet so you'll build 10 20 of them just for yourself nobody else can have them you'll run them on your own pi up trucks and you'll beat the snot out of them for a while before they go out anywhere else yep but there's this is so what is this made out of so everything here you see is aluminum okay anything it's not load bearing it just keeps the weight out of it do we want to talk about anything else going on with the plow because there's more prototype going on with this plow yeah we've done a lot of things um a lot of things sit lower the frame's lower um it's lighter it's stronger all the wing everything with the wing is lower so the cylinder that holds all the forces is lower down and what's the benefit of making everything lower cuz what the way Nick was describing it to me is you've put everything in a straight line as low as possible why just it's not can to leave it off the frame as much okay and for instance uh this cylinder used to mount up here would bend from here to here there' be bending Force so now it's just reduced by that what 3 in if not more um we're also not caning the wing as much I'll show you on this side Uh current design it pivots from here and the slots in the back we moved the slots to the front so now instead of can of Levering this far you're can Levering this far still have uh ar400 Wings still the same thickness but now it's going to be even more and you changed the entire frame yeah entire frame is our new tube style frame do we want to show it or yeah we can show it okay it's a if you were to buy a straight blade retrofit yeah this is actually the frame you'd get okay so and believe it or not that frame is lighter than your standard plow frame lighter and stronger right and it has more torsional twist resistance too a lot more torsional stiffness yep yep and you were when I walked in this morning this was just one sheet of metal you have been working your fully fully thought I've got it done uh to the point that it is just today and then it goes on your truck and it goes out and goes for testing goes for testing rapid testing and that's what we saved I told you we saved the best for last you get to see the Prototype you get to see what I seen 5 years ago behind the scenes when these boys were first making the razor back and it just kind of it looked like it was fugly it was fugly and uh but it was when you know what it was going to do it was beautiful it was exciting it was so exciting even back then yeah our prototypes look better now yeah for sure yeah this looks like it should go on a cyber truck is what Nick was saying it kind of looks like it hey Elon Musk you got a Tesla cybertruck you want us to test this out on probably get like five miles in the cold with a plow on the front of it I will make a special plow if he's willing to do it there you go all right well that's it for this video you guys uh hope you enjoyed going along for the ride seeing all of the changes getting the sneak peeks getting to see behind the scenes what these boys are doing with the Arctic Sectional pushers and the razor back and improvements and changes and modifications and how they're continually working to make these things bigger better better faster leaner stronger and meaner so that you guys can make more money in the end have less breakdowns push more snow be more productive and be happier and go back to your R and give give them hugs and kisses I think that's what it all boils down to yeah that's what it boils down to pretty much that's it and that's it for this video hope you guys enjoyed going along for the ride and I am out I'm going to be heading back 7 and 1/2 hours back to Minnesota so I'm going to let you guys go do whatever you guys do and I'll be on the road for a while so wish me luck and that's it for this one God bless go get them and even the attachment cylinder is unique that's pretty sure can can we show it or not pretty trick glance at it real quick you want to see it you want to see it may not be the final may be the final so this is how they're going to attach this it has to be orientated but yep no more no more struggling but you'll just I can just do it manually and there'll be a control system for it so it can't unlock but so you hit a button and you're Buton hit you're in and out yep that's hook up onto the truck you lock the pins and then it that's it and this is your own proprietary system no borrowing anybody else's technology from this at this point everything is yours are Hydraulics everything everything yep yep our controller you show them that yep I seen that yep I seen that yep all right God bless you guys go get them we'll catch you on another one let it smow