I need to make a "clean out blade" for cleaning up the botttom of footings so that I don't have to clean up the tooth marks with a square shovel. I've also heard it called a "crumbing blade". Something to slip over the bucket teeth to give a smooth cut. Anybody have any descriptions/pictures of theirs that I can copy? Thanks, Korey
I have a bucket with no teeth--a "cleanup bucket". In soft dirt, it'll dig just fine, and leaves a nice smooth bottom. Granted, that's not always what you want to have on the machine, so you may prefer to keep a toothed bucket on. If you're digging with a toothed bucket, why not just roll the bucket up and use the heel of the bucket to smooth the trench bottom? It'll drag most of the "crumbs" forward, and the rest will be pretty well compressed at the bottom of the trench--enough so that they won't really be a factor. Or is there an inspector or someone looking over your shoulder that's being particularly finicky? I've never used a detachable blade like you describe, (although I've thought about one), but on occasion have used a piece of flat steel welded to the two outer teeth, which you can just remove later by grinding the welds off.
our clay here is such that we just weld some 1-1/4" thick x 10" wide cutting edge over the teeth and leave it there. works great
blade of ditches [ONT="Arial"][/FONT] Very interesting to hear you with dirt tell how the jobs is accomplished. For our footers we weld a piece of new grader blade on the back of the bucket or heel replace it about every 10 months. Each hoe takes about 150 casted teeth per year. With travel time we charge for impact wear. We give $60 a day for teeth and pins after that the customer pays. Same for ripper teeth on dozers and loaders.
I've tried it all, I think. I like just having a smooth mouth bucket the best I used it a ton then pot holing for utilities and ever broke a thing. We had "footing teeth" on one of out bucket the teeth tapered out so there wasn't hardly any space between them. I don't like having a plate welded to the teeth, but it works. Most of the time I just use the back of the bucket to drag the lose stuff with me.
That was my first though too - getting a cleanout bucket, but was hoping to avoid another bucket to buy and carry around. How did you guess? :Banghead I'll try to pull it better with the bucket heel next time. Thanks, Korey
Ok, how about a compromise between what hillrancher suggested, and what I said about using the heel of the bucket. Weld a hunk of angle iron, say 4X6, to the heel of the bucket, far enough back that it doesn't contact the trench bottom when digging, but close enough that when you roll the bucket up, it can scrape the bottom of the trench. If you wanted more durability, you could attach a piece of cutting edge to it, and replace that as it wears out. Something like this:
even a couple strips of plate welded onto the heel horizontally really helps clean things out a bit.
I think Digger242J has the easy answer for you.Take an old piece of cutting edge from a blade or bucket and weld it to the end teeth only,just be sure to weld it in front of the teeth so the teeth are behind the edge for support as you are pulling against it and you remove it by just knocking the keepers out of the end teeth instead of having to change buckets. I have seen some old Case buckets with the teeth splayed off to an angle,especially the outside teeth and if you are using one the remove part of the plan here might not work as you need to be able to pull straight and parallel relative to the other tooth to remove it but I don't know if they are using that style any more or not. I have used that system over the years and for the most part once it is on there it seems to stay until it breaks unless you are in serious hard ground or frost where you cannot break into it to get any work done. The easy answer is a quick coupler and another bucket but sometimes you must make do with what you have on hand.The blade also eliminates the second bucket to carry or worry about getting stolen too.Ron G
We have a pin on cutting edge for our 24" tiger tooth bucket. We knock the pins out and remove 1 outside tooth on each side. The cutting edge has an adaptor on each end that slides over the feet where we removed the teeth. Knock the pins back in and you just changed a tiger tooth bucket to a straight cutting edge. I'll try and get some pics tomorrow. We use it for footing mainly.
i would think welding a cutting edge on the top side of your teeth is the best case scenario....unless you're digging in extremely tough soil conditions. i would think it would be easier to see your teeth/cutting edge, plus have more control on your trim passes vs. a chunk of angle iron welded on the bottom of your bucket. when excavating footings, basements here, if you're off more than a 1/2" either way in elevation, the cement contractors make you do one of 2 things...if you're too high, you send a man back to job and hand trim the excavation, or he makes you buy the extra concrete to fill the overdig.
Not to be ignorant or rude here, but just how smooth do the footers have to be? Isn't it just as easy to simply put the bucket flat bottom on the ground when your taking your last bucket full out of the trench? It may not be a perfectly smooth bottom, but you won't have the teeth marks either. I don't want to step on any toes here, this is just my opinion. I'm adding a picture, to better explain it. Keep in my this was my very first trench, so go easy on me.:wink2
the concrete contractors "here" would not accept that excavation in your pic. and i'm not trying to pick your job apart either, #1 here, they want them within 1/2" of grade #2 it appears that you've slid the back of your bucket over your teeth marks. it would be my guess that there is 2-3" of soil there that is not compacted and may have a possibility of settling, cracking the footing or foundation wall. our local building inspectors here would require that all the loose uncompacted material to be removed before concrete/rebar could be placed.
Got to love those picky inspectors I understand there reasoning, but 95%+ compaction can be had with just a bucket when back filling.
Easiest thing for us to do here is go to virgin soil. No one ever questions undisturbed dirt. I found an add for a " Dirt Squeegee " in Landscape Construction last night. They make a crumbing blade too. I like the idea - but not the price so much... Do yall think it would work?
I've fabricated my own ''squeegee''...about 4' long for finishing banks, etc. - works ok. as far as the trench bottom...my last pass is made with the bucket perfectly flat - my teeth bottoms are parallel with the bucket, so there are no teeth marks....if there are a few, they can be skimmed off with a shovel in a few minutes...
I understand what you are saying and in my particular case a lot of that is probably true. :Cowboy In theory what I was trying to do in my last lift I took out was pull the bucket towards me with the flat part of the bucket on the trench bottom, so your teeth would still be cutting in but the bottom of the bucket would smooth it out (re-reading ... just like xkvator said). Keep in my this was at school, the goal was to try to make the bottom smooth WITHOUT just curling the bucket and using the back:nono it's a lot easier to show than explain....
I think I know what you mean. You almost want to slide the bucket flat along the bottom of the trench like it was a loader bucket. It scrapes the loose stuff away and your left with mostly flat virgin soil except for some minor shovel work.
Looks like a waste of $$$ and it won't work any better than the above ideas. I would just weld an old cutting edge or a piece of flat stock to your two corner teeth real well and go to work.
Here is a link http://www.dura-tuff.com/finishing.asp
When I do footings, I just finish them up (like cat420 said) by cleaning out the crumbs like as if it were a loader bucket. We have never had any problems here and even been complimented on the quality of the trenches considering they were dug with a mini-x. Once you get the hand of it, it really does not slow you down and does not cost a thing.