At Dude Ranch DIY: Splitting with Modified 700-Series

So, earlier, we were looking at some of the awesome mods you did on your machine and now, what, we’re headed to your new lot to try it out? Yeah, we'll go put it to use and split some wood, have some fun. Great. Now, I assume all these logs are all cut to size, ready to go right? Oh, absolutely. Because I did not come down here to break a sweat. No, you're not going to break a sweat at all.

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All right. So, what do you think of my toy here? Well, I'm impressed. First of all, I love seeing an old machine still in use, earning its keep, and this is certainly doing that, but the mods are fantastic. Yeah. [From an] ergonomics standpoint [and an] efficiency standpoint, really, really, I think we cranked through some wood in pretty short order. Yeah, we definitely did. I mean, the modifications kind of speak for themselves, I think. You know, it's hard to see in the video, but once you're here, it really turned it into a different machine. Yeah, and think back to when we only had a horizontal-vertical type machine or what we call the Type 1, real original name. It was feedback from friends, from customers, ideas of our own that helped us develop what became the Type 2 which evolved into the 700-Series that we offer today. And, so that's why it's so great to come down and hang out. It was a good time, but also just to really see some of these mods in use. I mean, these are things that we've experimented with or we've only seen remotely watching customers' YouTube channels like, Dude Ranch DIY, but, yeah, to get some hands-on time is really fun.

We did run into one thing. Early on, we kind of noticed this rod was moving a little bit jerky so, you know, Jake was adding a little bit of lubricant, which is fine but then I'm thinking, "You know what?" I wonder if it's just a hair low on fluid and we checked and, sure enough, what did you add? A couple gallons, maybe? It was probably like, a gallon and a half, maybe two gallons. And, you know what? A lot of my viewers pointed out and they've noticed, you know, like we were talking about, they're all like hawks, and they saw that it was blowing a lot of the fluid out of the, you know, little reservoir. Yeah. So, I guess over time, that does add up and just traveling, you know, with the back and forth and stuff, but as soon as we put that in, you're absolutely right. It smoothed right out. The auto cycle started working better. It all just seemed to, like, kind of click and then we found our rhythm. Yep. So, you know, because the return detent had a bit of a lag and once we topped off the fluid, that seemed to, you know, really snap and we just powered through the last few rounds and that was a really good time. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Thanks for coming by and helping me out split the wood here and I'm glad you finally got to see my modifications in real life, you know, up close and personal. Yeah, I mean, if every day at the Dude Ranch DIY is this fun, we'd love to come back and spend some more time. Hey, we'd love to have you guys anytime.

All right. Thanks.

The guys from RuggedMade are still here and, as you can see, backing up the driveway. They got a new little toy for me.