I have a 12” bucket and need to dig footers 16” and 18” wide. Thinking about an over the teeth plate 4” and 6” wider than the bucket Searched the forum and didn’t see anything. Any ideas or pictures? Thanks
I've seen "wings" bolted on loader buckets to push snow, but unless you're digging nothing but sand, me thinks you should probably invest in a wider bucket...
I am not a skilled operator but I do not find it difficult to shave the sides of a trench to get the width I need. Not that this picture has anything to do with shaving trenches a bit wider.
Ill keep looking for a 16-18” bucket that would be best and I might have other uses. The concrete savings of 24” vs 18” would come close to paying for a bucket. Shaving the sides hasn’t worked well for me in the past. Might fabricate something over the teeth to try out first to experiment. Of course, my goal is to have consistent width footings to meet requirements and not too wide to save on concrete.
How many feet and how high are the footings are you pouring ? I think you should do the math regarding the extra concrete cost. Consider buying a 24" inch bucket. A 24" bucket is about the same price as an 18". You can do so much more over time with a 24" bucket as opposed to an 18". 6 inches more trench width makes a big difference when you have to get down into it to work. As you know the wider footing is a good thing for load bearing.
Don't try to shave the sides. Use the hoe to pick up the back end and set it over the necessary amount. Then you can dig with a straight pull rather than pulling while trying to swing against the wall.
As of now, the footers are approx. 188 linear feet, 16" wide by 8" thick. I wanted to dig them 18" wide for just a little margin. 18" vs 24" is about 2.33 cy. Probably a little more for the frost free portion, where the garage doors are. 24" would have better bearing for sure and give more of a margin for wall, and it might be what I end up doing. Thought of maybe welding a piece of 18" long cutting edge on teeth or bolt it on. But the footers would need to be spot on. If I use the 12" bucket I would paint both sides of the footers and 'scoot' the rear of the machine to dig in a straight line. But I'm not sure if the footers would e uniform enough.
The over-dig of the 24" trench would be a very good thing if your layout is not perfectly square. Many years ago I started using the hypotenuse of a triangle to get anything I was building or excavating to get it perfectly square. I can explain it if anyone wants know how to do it.
The 24” would make for better access for forms or block and faster to lay the banks back for sure. The hypotenuse is how I lay things out too. Sometimes 6/8/10 too. Interesting flashback...while I was in school I used to help someone layout, dig footers and just a general laborer many years ago. He would keep checking square (diagonal) to see if it was equal and usually shifted some and ended with ‘that’s close enough’. Once I learned the Pythagorean therorem and 6,8,10 he was skeptical at first and while he didn’t know algebra, he learned the formula real quick!
Craig’s list may have some
leave bucket teeth extending down couple inches below flat plate going across, can curl bucket to make that work as needing
Make or buy some side cutters
I checked last night and it has some side cutters at 12” wide. Might look into widening 3” each side, but would need to pay a welder. As others suggested I might be better to either buy an 18” bucket or dig with 24”. Might be close to same cost and wider footers are better. I at least wanted to consider widening and didn’t want to reinvent the wheel if someone tried this. Thanks for all the input
You could always sell the 18" bucket to help makeup for what 24" would cost.
That’s a thought, but in reality I never let anything go!