I am familiar with those. They are much more durable, but if a limb gets under your hose and pulls up on it or pushes down, it will likely either loosen the fitting or break the seal. It's not a sure thing, but I've tightened a lot of hoses like that after rough working in the woods. Those are the same fittings that my brother uses at CA. We've had a few customers call that had leaks for the same reason. Not a big deal. Usually realigning the hose and some extra tightening will reseal them.
Also, good luck finding those in the correct lengths without a hydraulic shop that makes and crimps their own fittings. That would also be true for our crimped on NTP fittings, especially the one with swivels. My only argument is that so far....this is asking for it....no customer that we know of has had a leak or had to replace any hoses aside from the hoses that lead from the tractor to the attachment because of physical damage.
That being said, I've never liked the idea of putting a full expanded metal backing across the whole back of a new grapple. I noticed that Eric's only covered the center part to protect his QA levers and his grill/radiator, which got me to thinking. Starting Monday, we will be cutting 3-5 slots, 2 1/2" apart, on the back of our tines, where we will insert 3/16" x 1/2" protective strips. This won't stop everything, but it will protect you from most of it without impairing your view or causing trash to build up. We will share pics when the 1st one is complete. We will discount our existing inventory(as you could see in the video, there's plenty) $50 until the ones without the protective straps are depleted. To receive the $50 discount, just let us know you saw it on this thread.
If you've bought one in the last week, we will give you a $50 refund from Ted's back pocket. :laughing:
Everything in this post came straight from Ted and typed by Travis. Here's a little personal info.....I am a genius on the left side of my brain, which is math and design, but I am 3rd grade on the right side. I can't spell s***, but wouldn't trade it to be equally average on both sides. I am very passionate about the attachments that I build and have heard several people comment that we sound arrogant. I am anything but that. We simply work hard to give you what I think is the best, and would rather not argue about anything anymore. I think I am misunderstood and possibly do come off as arrogant. I've had a W2 since I was 12 years old and only completed the 10th grade, but I have played hard and worked hard my whole life. The social media game is probably not my better skill set. I would probably do better to let Travis do all the posting and stay out of it.
Travis is a great guy. He's a great salesman and is great for customer service, which is the most important thing to us and has been the key to our success!
Thanks to Eric and everyone else that has helped make our products better. We really do listen and care.
Ted