Status of Everything Attachments

[mcmxi]

Xtreme Duty 6 Way blade: Website description, pictures and the product video all clearly stated and showed a castle nut to adjust the blade rotation. It is/was a selling point as to why you should buy theirs instead of someone else's. Well, despite clearly saying that they do, they don't build them like that. They bolt a plate to top of the rotation pin instead, cheaper and easier obviously but on mine they made the pin the wrong length. The entire weight of the blade was supported by the lock pin "ear" underneath the frame, well that bent and damaged the ear and if you tried to rotate the blade 180 to back blade it would fall down and you couldn't rotate it back. They "fixed it" by grinding the down the rotation pin to make it shorter but they didn't shorten it enough so it didn't actually fix the issue and they didn't fix the ear that was damaged. There were several other issues with that blade that they made no attempt to fix and told me to sell it if I wasn't happy.

Xtreme Land Leveler 2.0: "Wicked" scarifier shank angles are wrong and they don't dig into the ground. You could clearly see by looking at them from the side that the tip angle was wrong. They denied that it was an issue for months on their Facebook page and were finally forced to admit that it was and change it. The main frame tube is not high enough above the leading cutting edge and results in plugging the implement up almost immediately to the point of being almost useless, if you had a hydaulic top link you could mitigate the issue by angling back and reducing the agressiveness of the cut but then it would make washboard. I've used and owned multiple land planes, this one was garbage. Heavy and awesome looking yes but functionally terrible. Also, no adjustable skids, just slotted blade mounting holes which only allowed you to increase blade depth not decrease it. Well, if you've used a landplane before there are times when you need to reduce the blade depth and angling it back just does not work as well. There's a reason every other company has adjustable skids and/or blade depth. When you asked EA about it they said that it was too hard to make that and they didn't want to add any moving parts.




I'm disputing it, they had no R+D whatsoever other than ripping up asphalt and they were building stuff that didn't work and had quality control issues.

You seemed to have good things to say about EA a little over a year ago. I use their land leveler regularly on my driveways with great results and have zero issues with the design.

HD box blade?

my 84" Land Pride w/retractable rippers (manual) has done an outstanding job, very hd. highly recommend hyd top link for the blade if you already don't have & have an extra rear valve for it. not sure i'd go for an 8' blade on a tractor that size, but will let others advise you on that, happy...

www.tractorbynet.com

"Just make sure whatever you buy has the rippers mounted to the back of the cross tube instead of slotted through it. That's pretty much Woods or EA.

I have the Woods BSM84, 1/2" steel side plates, slightly heavier than the EA, it was cheaper, and it was in stock too. I use it on a 62hp tractor and no regrets.

I had a bad experience with EA so I have a hard time recommending them even though some of the stuff they make is really nice and/or unique to the market."

 

[mcmxi]

I've followed these EA threads since they started and want to offer my rational for having spent the small premium on a Wicked Grapple and paying in full for a delivery that was 5 months out. Being a mechanical engineer I tend to evaluate things in detail. I determined that my 35HP tractor with a somewhat limited loader lift capacity, needed a relatively light weight grapple. I am also on a heavily wooded property that I'm in process of open up in specific places. I know I'll be abusing my equipment doing so and Ive already broken and bent 3-point hitch pins and a heavy duty subsoiler pulling up roots. So far Ive not bent the loader cylinders but I'm sure I've pushed to the limits.

With those criteria in mind I decided the Wicked had the best weight to strength ratio based on Teds videos, knowing the mechanical properties of Hardox, and reading how competitors equivalent products performed in the field doing the type of work I anticipated doing. I was not happy about paying full price 5 months in advance but its all part of the tradeoff decisions I made in picking the Wicked55 and I've not regretted that decision.

There is no one choice that works for everyone. We each make a decisions based on what is important to us. I personally am very disappointed to see how EA is now treating their future customers who have paid up front and it will enter into my decision to purchase in the future after this all plays out and some final resolution is reached.

My decision making process mirrored yours. I wanted a tough grapple to dig up and move boulders on my property with occasional log and brush work. My only regret is that I bought the Wicked 60 rather than the Wicked 66. I didn't know at that time that I'd buy an M6060 to join the MX.

I think everyone here can agree that the most important outcome is that anyone with money paid out either gets refunded or the implement they ordered.

 

[MattB4]

...

With those criteria in mind I decided the Wicked had the best weight to strength ratio based on Teds videos, knowing the mechanical properties of Hardox, and reading how competitors equivalent products performed in the field doing the type of work I anticipated doing. I was not happy about paying full price 5 months in advance but its all part of the tradeoff decisions I made in picking the Wicked55 and I've not regretted that decision.

...

It has been interesting reading about the demise of EA. I would say your decision to select EA as your source was based on reasoning but the 5 month pay ahead of time was not. A deposit amount (say 10%) until shipping possibly is justifiable but not payment in full and a indeterminate ship date. The risk is too great the more time elapses between paying and receiving. Not a tradeoff I would ever make.

My sympathies to the workers and those left holding the bag. If by some chance EA was able to resume operation I expect their reputation is completely shot.

I did Google about and read a few accounts of EA's closing (temporary?).

 

[bcs001]

It has been interesting reading about the demise of EA. I would say your decision to select EA as your source was based on reasoning but the 5 month pay ahead of time was not. A deposit amount (say 10%) until shipping possibly is justifiable but not payment in full and a indeterminate ship date. The risk is too great the more time elapses between paying and receiving. Not a tradeoff I would ever make.

I completely agree that 10% down would have been a much more preferred way to make the purchase but......since that wasn't an option and I didn't want to buy another brand of grapple, I accepted the risk. Its perfectly fine if you would have made a different choice. At the time I made my purchase there was no talk of the company being in trouble and in fact the new factory had just been started so the risk was small in my opinion. That decision would obviously be different today.

 

[two_bit_score]

I'm sure EA was a pimple on the butt of tractor implement sales. Losing them will not be an economic factor.

An awful lot of people having melt downs on TBN about EA lately might disagree.

 

[Rich_Z]

IronCraft is certainly USA manufactured, but NOT entirely USA sourced. Their own website says as much. Made in the USA with USA and imported parts. they have told me their steel is US-made steel so that makes a difference.

I recently purchased a flail mower from IronCraft that has a label on it plainly stating "Made in India".

 

[Eagle1]

IronCraft was acquired by LFM Capital in 2022....
As part of the IronCraft acquisition, Pat Kozlowski and Arden Schwandt will join the executive team as CEO and CFO, respectively, replacing Titan (now IronCraft) founders Mike Turner and Baily Turner who are pursuing other endeavors

 

[tommott77]

I completely agree that 10% down would have been a much more preferred way to make the purchase but......since that wasn't an option and I didn't want to buy another brand of grapple, I accepted the risk. Its perfectly fine if you would have made a different choice. At the time I made my purchase there was no talk of the company being in trouble and in fact the new factory had just been started so the risk was small in my opinion. That decision would obviously be different today.

I’m willing to bet the farm that they wouldn’t have stayed open as long as they did without charging 100% upfront on orders with TBD production and shipping time frames.

Unintended or not, Perpetually running a business model on paid in full back orders smells too much like a a pyramid scheme to me. One way or another inevitably some folks are/were left holding empty bags of crap.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

"Just make sure whatever you buy has the rippers mounted to the back of the cross tube instead of slotted through it. That's pretty much Woods or EA.

That's a lot of EA hype and not necessary, unless you are planning on ripping up a 4" asphalt driveway with a heavy 80hp tractor. Most people using a landplane are smart enough to buy to the horsepower rating of their tractor. It's going to take considerable effort to bend or twist the main cross tube on the average landplane while regrading a driveway or leveling a plot of land. I haven't seen many people with that complaint.
Doing it the EA way is stronger, but if something is built to handle a 50-75hp tractor. buying something that is rated to 200hp is the equivalent of buying a Charger Hellcat to do the grocery shopping on weekends.
Enough is enough, more than enough is waste.

 

[LouNY]

That's a lot of EA hype and not necessary, unless you are planning on ripping up a 4" asphalt driveway with a heavy 80hp tractor. Most people using a landplane are smart enough to buy to the horsepower rating of their tractor. It's going to take considerable effort to bend or twist the main cross tube on the average landplane while regrading a driveway or leveling a plot of land. I haven't seen many people with that complaint.
Doing it the EA way is stronger, but if something is built to handle a 50-75hp tractor. buying something that is rated to 200hp is the equivalent of buying a Charger Hellcat to do the grocery shopping on weekends.
Enough is enough, more than enough is waste.

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