If you’ve met Digger Digg from Outrider Off Road, you already know what I’m about to impart. He’s a salt of the earth, no nonsense fabricator with a great head for engineering and a huge heart. While in the Dallas area for training I was lucky enough to catch up with Digger for a few minutes late one evening to check out his fabrication and product development operation, in an aircraft hangar.Outrider Off Road, and Digger Digg, is known as one of the top producers of essential armor for the dedicated FJC off roader. His shock mount armor, lower control arm armor, and of course rear differential skid are as tough as they come. His designs are well thought out, almost over engineered, and are virtually bombproof. It’s almost hard to believe all this great armor comes from one man, working in the back corner of the hangar.
Like many small operations, in the past Digger had to outsource the fabrication of his prototypes and production runs to shops in order to meet demand. This meant waiting days and sometimes weeks to get prototypes back and tested. Any changes would then cause another delay, so the building process was somewhat cumbersome. The plasma cutter changed all that!
With his new computer controlled system, Digger can now produce prototypes in hours instead of days. New ideas are easy to fabricate, test, revise, and produce in a fraction of the time. This means that in the future we can expect tweaks to already great products, and new FJ gear as well. Maybe even non-armor products (I promised Digger I wouldn’t say more).
While the visit was short, it was really great to get a feel of how Outrider Off Road operates. Our entire team is really looking forward to what Digger has in store for us in the coming years!
More Photos!
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