Samson® Helps Build Giant Snow Truck

Watch the Yeti Teaser Video here

Master fabricator Rex Bailey used the Samson® machine to build the “Yeti” (the abominable snowman), a monster truck that drives through snow more than 3 feet deep. The 76-inch tractor tires, Unimog portal axles, and modified Dodge 3500 Cummins diesel truck are all joined together by custom-designed plates that Rex made with the machine.

"In every shop where I’ve worked, you start out with an idea, trace it onto a piece of metal, and cut it out by hand. You use a saw or torch and then drill the holes you need. It takes a lot of time, and there’s a lot of grinding, filing and beating. If you need several of the same part, you have to repeat this process each time.
"Now that I’ve used the Samson® machine, I’ll never go back to the old way. I can draw and cut perfect parts in much less time. Once I design a part, I can cut as many as I want. It’s also nice to be able to get a full sheet into the machine and get a lot of parts out of it.

"I can’t believe that every metal shop doesn’t have one of these machines when you see how much time is wasted making parts the other way. You don’t realize the difference until you use one – it’s very eye opening. A shop can really up its production and cater to more customers. It frees you up to do more things. Instead of 5 people waiting in line for you to make their projects, you can be cutting all the parts you need at once.

"The machine opens up new possibilities for what you can build, how you can build it, and how quickly and accurately. I needed to take the pinion nut off of the Unimog differential to clean the bearings. They wanted $200 for a wrench out of Germany. With the software, I drew and cut my own wrench in a few minutes, and it worked great.
"You can make stuff with intricate detail that is not even possible by hand. I don’t care how skilled you are with a plasma cutter, you’d be there forever.
I thought it was just a cool machine until I used it, like something you see on TV that isn’t as easy as they make it look. Now I can’t believe that I did things the other way for so long. It’s simple to use. If I can learn how to use it, anyone can."

The article below was published by FF Journal magazine May 2007 to describe how Samson was used to help create the Yeti: