The Best Tools of Con Expo 2026

All right, guys. It's day one of Conexpo Conagg, and this is an expo that only comes once every 3 years. And I'm going to start scouring the show and trying to find the absolute coolest tools, gear, and equipment to bring to you guys. So, without wasting any more time, let's just jump right into today's video. All right, you guys. Today's video, the best of Conexpo, is brought to you by my friend Rogan from Bear Iron Works. And Rogan, you've got seven different tools that you guys manufacture right in Colorado, right? >> Yes, and we ship all over the country. Okay, so the first one is a tool that I personally own and I absolutely love. And a lot of guys aren't familiar are familiar with these, but they aren't familiar with some of the differences. So, what do you guys do that's different about this and explain this to me, will you? So, one of the things that we do here with our grizzlies we took the the basic grizzly and I feel like we perfected it for durability uh wise. We come through here and we put solid steel rails on all of our grizzlies. That way, as they wear out, you still have plenty of steel over the years compared to hollow tubing. Um we've got the removable screen system here. This is something that lets you change out your screen sizing with the tool or with the cutting edge of your equipment. You just pop it off, pop it back on, and we've got sizes from 1/4 in up to 4 in. So, you can change that out. It's a cheap but simple and durable solution for screening. So, really with that system, a guy can come in with his bucket, lift that out, and then grab a different screen and put it on and stay in operation, and there's no mechanical Exactly. It's all toolless to exchange it, and you've got all the different sizes here that you can pick from for your screens. Okay, so you can purchase any one of these sizes and add on at any time. So, it's not a one one and you're done like you get with other companies. And other companies are being imported from other nations, not up to the quality you guys are using. Right. Yeah, they're bringing them in from China and just because of the design of these things they're not very efficient to ship. So, you're going to be paying a a premium for a a low quality product that's built with thinner tubing, doesn't have solid steel rails, and then you're going to have to assemble it yourself and it's going to fall apart. This thing's solid welded by some of the best welders, you know, pipe welders, certified welders that know how to make a strong product and you can see that in the quality of our welds. And you can you can screen some pretty massive material using this thing from rocks and everything else, but the entire system itself is also mobile. So, you can come in from the back side of this, pick the entire system up and move it. In fact, that's my farm right there. Here I am picking it up and moving it from one location to another location just with my skid loader. I absolutely love this thing. There it is. It's as simple as that to use. Now, but you have different sizes, right, Rogan? Yep, we make all sizes from the smallest equipment for a right-on skid steer and we even make hand screens, too. And the biggest equipment uh our biggest standard goes to a 966 loader, but we've even made them bigger applications for mining um as well. And the best part about this is you can set it and forget it. So, now this one is sitting on my farm and I haven't needed it because we haven't screened any material up there and I don't worry about it. There's nothing I got to do, no maintenance I got to do with it. It's there and when I need it, I just pop the right screening back on it and I'm making black dirt out of compost, I'm making road base out of gravel. Yep. I can do so much with this machine. Yep, you can clean trash, you can make recycling, you can do whatever you need to for your operation that makes sense. All right. And if guys are interested in this thing, they can find more info on this at beariron.com. But guys, we're going to keep this show rolling. We're going to show you some of the coolest stuff at Conexpo and then we're coming back to Rogan and checking out another one of his cool tools. All right, Derek. Explain this tire to me, Leia. Okay, so this is actually a backhoe tire. A lot of technology in this tire that people wouldn't really know about. First of all, it's segmented so you can fix it. But, being a backhoe tire, this thing's got to roll down the you know, down from job site to job site. You're going 25 mph, 28 mph. Heat dissipation's a big deal on this. We specifically designed the tire to with chemistry and um mechanical design to be able to dissipate heat, have a stable heat profile so they can go down the road. It's also not going to bounce like a normal pneumatic tire. Uh with a backhoe, you get a whole bunch of, you know, hopping and and dynamics with it. With this, it's just a smooth ride, designed to go. But, it's going to get you lots of traction, enable you to work. So, it's segmented. So, let's just talk about this. You can actually take this section of this tire off. Yeah. And bolt a new section on. So, if you have somebody rip a section out, you can get back in operation just by >> So, we always say like it's segmented so you can fix it if you need to, but it's built so that you don't need to. Basically, like if you were to damage one of these, let's say the tire's half worn, but you still got a good tread life in, you call us up, give us a tread depth measurement. We're going to send you out a wear part to match, but more times than not, almost all times, this tire's going to be completely worn out. The customer's going to call us, we're going to send you a full set of rubber, you're going to redo it right on your machine or on your job site, put it all back together, and get back to work. So, I just heard someone ask, what's the price and what's the lifespan on it? Yeah, so it kind of depends like we make tires for everything, right? This is a backhoe. Uh a set of rears and fronts for backhoes like 12 grand US. That's tires, rims, delivered into the US or lower Canada. Uh but, on average, we're usually about like double the wear life or sorry, double the cost for a tire and rim or maybe like 50% higher depending on what we're talking about. But, you're going to get three, four, five times wear life depending on the application. So, it's a long-term ROI savings. So, now you also have them for UTVs. You actually have them for Humvees. Let's Let's go take a look at some of these, Leah. >> Yeah, so this is an R&D project we're working on for the side-by-side. This is a performance machine, low-end of the performance side of things, but we're doing it for UTV, side-by-side. We want to come out with a rock crawling tire for these. Uh this is a 29. We want to do a 32 and a 35, uh depending on the application. Uh then over here we got the Humvee tire. And this is another uh basically like R&D project we're doing. This is off-road truck tire. We're developing a tire for uh off-road truck tire. So, it could be like underground mining, it could be military application, could be, you know, job site work, mining, open pit, underground, doesn't matter. Wherever you're going to go that flat tire's an issue, this is going to be a solution. We put a lot of compression into it so the tire actually still gets good uh ride quality, traction, all that kind of stuff. We had a climbing tire here so we could show that off at the show, but yeah, this is like a business card for us. We built this truck, we build our tires, we build everything. All right, where Where do you guys find these at? evolutionwheel.com, that's the best place to go and uh yeah, talk to us, talk to one of our team, good to go, man. Appreciate it. >> appreciate it. All right, Kyle, what are we looking at with this one now? >> Today we're looking at a utility diesel robot. It's called the Grazeon. It's 26 horsepower. You can have 50 plus attachments on it. You can run box blades, snow blowers, plows, uh weed whips that can go on the side of it so it'll be a lawn mower on the back, you can actually weed whip on the side while you're lawn mowing. Okay. It can have front end loaders. You can have pretty much any three-point attachment that's category one as you see right here can go on the back of it. We got PTOs in the rear and in the middle. And then the PTOs can extend to the front, too, to where you can have a snow blower on the front of it running. Okay, but why wouldn't we just want a loader or a skid loader or something like cuz that what I see this doing right here is a remote RC robot could also be done by a different piece of equipment. >> Except that piece of equipment usually has someone driving it and you can't get underneath [clears throat] the most of the places these are going. They're going underneath at lower angles where you can't get someone underneath. And then same with mowing. You can't get someone to mow underneath that so then you have a way of going underneath of it. You can actually map your whole site out to where it mows and you're not even there. Okay, so what you're telling me if I'm understanding this correctly, it's like one of my trench packers that's remote control. I can put the machine where I don't feel comfortable putting an operator in a tight space or maybe we've got ditch banks next to it or something like that. You can actually lift and lower this into place. >> lift and lower. We've got points right here where we can put hook points and you can actually lift this up the machine and drop it into a trench. It also has packers that can go on the back of it so you can have vibratory packers, regular packers. We've got so many options. We custom build these robots. These are not a one-off thing. You can get anything you want but you have to come to us and what does it need? How long do you need it? We build the lease out. We build the contract. We do these are a per job thing. It's not going to fit all jobs. It's just one application. >> Okay, so you tailor them specifically to a customer's needs if I'm understanding. All right, so if a guy was interested in learning more information on these, what would they do? They would go to our website botcrew.com and contact me. My name is Kyle Kruchowski. I'm also on LinkedIn. If you want to hit me up on there. Um I do not have any Instagram or Facebook like that right now but um yeah, just botcrew.com is the best way to go at us. We're willing to set up any custom attachments that you need. We build everything in house. It's all American-made in Duluth, Minnesota right on Lake Superior in Canal Park. This is what we love to do. All right, there it is botcrew.com. Thanks Kyle, appreciate it. All right, let's keep this show going. All right, guys. We're back at Bear Iron Works with Rogan and now you have something that is maybe slightly familiar to you guys, but you've done some innovation with it. >> Yes. So, we've taken the the traditional bedding box here. You might know it as a stone boat or a rock box and we made it smaller for a mini excavator. That way you can use it for not just trenching in tight side utilities, but you can also use it for landscaping and different material management. Then we did the next thing here is we put a skid steer attachment plate universal attachment plate on the side. So, you can actually pick this up with your skid steer. You could have a dump truck dump straight into this thing and bring the bedding box straight to your excavator here. So, if you come in here, we've got a little uh small scale construction site here. You can see a bedding box being used in a in a traditional setting. It's going to be holding your bedding sand when you're installing your pipe in the ground and it just moves along with your excavator along the trench as you go along. So, you can have a seamless operation and you can keep your sand moving with you. So, you're not wasting any material. So, it's your dad was saying truck to trench. >> Truck to trench. Yeah, you could bring because of the skid steer attachment plate, your dump truck can actually just line up right here. It's the right width for it that you could just crack your gate, dump straight into it, fill up the cubic yard, which is this size. We also make a 2 cubic yard. Then it just right away take it straight to your excavator, drop it right there. He can keep his trenching operation moving forward. So, that way your your trenching operation never stops. And do you have different sizes of this as well, Rogan? >> just like all of our products, we make everything from the smallest products here for mini excavators all the way up to the biggest. We make up to a 12 cubic yard bedding box for use with the large utility installs. Okay. And again, if guys want more information on these, it's beariron.com. All right, guys. Let's keep the show rolling. Let's go check out some more cool tools and we'll be back with Rodman and check out his next one. All right, John. What are we looking at with this one now? >> That's our carbide tip hole cutter for going through heavy steel up to 1-in thick material. So, how is this different than a normal drill bit? Well, you're drilling just the circumference. You're not drilling the solid diameter of the material. That's why it's so quick. All right. Where do you guys find out more information on these? >> ड्रिल.com ड्रिल.com. Will you hold this so I can see that? There we go. All right. Thank you, John. All right, Lindsay. What is this we're looking at now? >> All right. This is the safest hammer in the world. We have the slide sledge. It is a sliding style sledgehammer. You can use it to knock pins out of equipment. Okay. You can take teeth off with it. >> Yes, you can. This tip comes off. You can put any of these other tips on there. You take this other tip. So, now this tip is designed to get between the teeth on a bucket. >> Yes, it is. So, you go in here. It's that easy. It's that easy. And all of these tips are options right here, right? >> Yes, they are. They fit on all of our yellow hammers. We have different sized hammers, different tips depending on what you need to do. All right. Where do you guys find out more info? You can go to slidesledge.com. slidesledge.com. Thanks, Lindsay. >> Thank you. All right, Rogan. The next one is washout tubs. Yes. >> But, you don't even do washout tubs like the what normal people would do. Yeah, so we we make a a pre-manufactured washout tub that's engineered and rated for lifting. Our biggest one's actually lifted rated for 12,500 lb. But, a washout tub is something that's required on a on a on a job site for a stormwater plan. And what we've done is you can usually do a pit, but they become hard to maintain. And so, you can get a pan here and just wash out your truck in here. It's easier to deal with because it can set up a little bit faster. Once it's hardened, you can just dump it upside down and and take that concrete and you can put it in a pile that you could actually crush and recycle for later. And there's actually a whole business to be made with washout tubs. There's companies out there that go and and provide this as a service to contractors on job sites. And we offer different sizes, 1 2 3 cubic yards. They come with We We offer lids, so that way you can put a lid on it so you can either transport it while it's wet uh before it's set up all the way if you're doing a service business like that, or preventing rain from uh raining in there, overflowing it, and causing a stormwater violation. Okay, but the thing that guys need to know that's different about your washout tubs and what they're finding in the market is one eight, it's one of the only ones made in America, period, if not the only one. There is some question whether there is other companies making them in America. >> Yes. But, the second thing is this is designed to hold 12,000 lb, where the other ones are designed to hold If they're rated, maybe 3 or 4,000 lb cuz this can be used as a crane skip box as well to get your materials like up on a high-rise or something like that. Um a lot of the other ones in the on the market, they're coming from China. There's a lot of uh reports of bad quality on them where they might not be watertight and leaking, and that's a stormwater violation. Ours are 100% American-made. We have a very stringent quality control testing uh procedure. And and we can make quite a bit of these and if you have an existing washout business, we actually make custom spec sized tubs that we can match your existing tubs and we're got short lead times and can get them out the door pretty So, when you say a custom washout business, what guys are actually doing is renting these boxes to job sites. >> Yes. Guys are filling them up, they're putting the cap on them, then they come back, pick them up, bring them back to their plant where they crush them, recycle them, and then use them as road base. So, Yeah. they're charging for the rental of the piece of equipment >> Yep. and they're making money on producing the material that they're then reselling. It's brilliant. It's a win-win situation. >> ends. Yep. I love it. Money on top of money. All right, well, we've got more to go with Bear Iron Works, but we are going to check out the rest of Conexpo, but if you need more information, beariron.com. Let's keep this show rolling and we'll see you guys in a few minutes back here as well. Brad, what are we looking at? Okay, so what did I just see, Brad? You just saw the toughest window in the world keeping you safe, keeping you on time, well worth your money, the best windshield in the world. So, now this is, uh, is it a Lexan replacement window? It's a Lexan one-piece replacement window with my coating on it. It'll fit like the factory glass, but it won't act like the factory glass. It'll act like a Shields windshield. So, you actually have a real world example over here where it saved this guy's life, right? >> Exactly. It's great to see the hammer hit. I had a gentleman in Florida just bought my window and after about an hour into it, the cutter started to make noise, this broke off and 11,000 1,100 RPMs hit the window right there. It put some damage on the window, but he's safe, he's happy, he's a very satisfied customer. So, so one of these flails actually flung off at 1,100 RPM and this is the actual result. >> the entire unit itself hit that. And he said he wasn't sure if it was 30 seconds or 30 minutes till he took his next breath, but he took his next breath. Where do guys buy no more info on you? You can find us at shieldswindshields.com. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram and other social medias. You can call us at 1-800-554-7527. There's the info. All right. Thanks, Brad. All right, thank you, man. All right, Jared. This is your tool right here, right? >> Yes, it is. And that's you running it. Yes, sir. What does this do? So, this is for routing out the cracks in the road. So, when you go to fill with the rubberized tar, this takes the manual labor out of it, so you're not running behind it and wearing yourself out. So, is there any other technology? I mean, that's the That's the way they do used to do it, right? >> Yes, that's the That's the way they they do it. They still do currently do it. Uh with our method, you can speed up your whole operation two to six times. I I would I would imagine that's a conservative number. >> Yes. Right? [laughter] I mean, I'm I'm watching you go. I've heard back from people have it numbers higher than that. I just don't want to over promise. >> [laughter] >> And this is a kind of a close-up of how the unit looks right here. This is a 3D model that you have. Yes. What…