I've been shopping for a new bucket for my Cat 307. The one I have is 28" and has 4 teeth. That seems like a nice number of teeth. First one I got a picture of from a vendor was 30" w/ 5 teeth. Next vendor, 30", it had 6 teeth. (Fleco brand) . So what is up with having lots of small teeth ? And is it a good idea to buy a bucket w/no corner gussets ? I'd like to get mine rebuilt if possible but I'm sure that will take a while longer than I want to be without a bucket. Thanks for any insights.
Good day Pixie Normally a tooth manufacture will be able to recommend spacing accordig to machine power and bucket width i attach a couple of informations that may be of interest. Kind regards Uffex
it also depends what the bucket is intended for a rock bucket here in Miami will have 6 teeth on a 18" bucket while a general purpose bucket might 3 or 4. I personally like these heavy duty cp rock buckets they are tough as hell.
Out here it seems a bigger issue on tooth spacing on excavator buckets is matching the tines on the thumbs. Most operators want the thumb tines to clamp to the bucket cutting edge and not on the bucket teeth. The other issue I saw, as the one changing the teeth, concerned the type of retainers. With side pin retainers, you have to have enough space to be able to use a hammer and punch to remove them. I also think that more teeth reduces the penetration force the machine can exert on the ground.
Have seen Four and Five teeth on a hoe bucket, six basically puts it toward a solid edge.
down here if you don't have a strong bucket and teeth close together it Is hard to dig because you will end up with gouges where the teeth hit and really slow you down digging
Thanks for your replies and pictures. Yes, matching a thumb gets confusing w/more teeth and changing and finding replacement teeth is harder. Some teeth are super pointy and some have spade tips. We just have average dirt with a few rocks and a few large rocks, some clay. The different geometries are interesting but there doesn't seem to many choices for this size/machine.
If you space out the shanks correctly you can change your bucket edge design by changing teeth. High penetration tiger teeth,standard teeth,paddle teeth make a straight edge to grade with.
I've got a couple where when a wide tip is installed, they nearly kiss, leaving nothing pointed, allowing for safer digging locating a utility, and/ or easier grading.
That’s what I call paddle teeth.
The other thing that interests me is that Sometimes the outer 2 teeth are angled towards the outside. I gather that having something wider than the actual bucket can be helpful and slow wear to the bucket but those 2 teeth are going to get beat silly if not broken by rocks. And they also are out of line/no help if a person were to put on spade teeth.
Outside teeth always take more of a beating then the others.
At the coal mines I worked years ago, we regularly swapped the outside teeth to the insides all the time. The was both on excavators and wheel loaders.
All my 2 foot buckets have 5 shanks on a backhoe and it depends on bucket make for weather the outside teeth get an angle All the old Gannon buckets have angled shanks were as the newer woods the side is notched out and shank welded in on the very edge I usually put twin tigers on the outsides because it helps with ware but I dont think I break any of those shanks cause of the angle more due to operators abuse