Hi all, is there a bucket for an excavator that faces the other direction? i.e. instead of the bucket scooping towards you, it would scoop away from you. I turn compost piles, I'd like to use the swivel action of the excavator to move material from right to left across my site. However I don't want to put the excavator on top of the compost pile, id' like to be positioned on the groun in front of the pile to scoop material up. Or have I seen a gradall that is setup like this?
I think you could just pull the pins on most and put them on backwards. You'd lose some bucket breakout force, but turning compost, who'd care?
Back when I worked for Rain Country we had some situations where they wanted to work like a shovel instead of a backhoe, so we just turned the bucket around, if the ears have the room or if you modify the bucket it works good enough for light material the operator just has to be careful not to bury the bucket cylinder rod in the material. I know one outfit put a logging front on an excavator (because the stick was designed to push, with the cylinder mounted under instead of on top) and fitted the bucket where the heel rack would normally pin on. worked well and cost loads less than buying an actual shovel, not many around anymore unless you want to load an acre to the scoop.
I put the bucket on backwards once in a while. I have a pin-grabber so it's really no big deal. Only problem I have had with the geometry it's hard to get full scoop unless the stick is way out. For piling manure works great though. Faster than loader, cleaner than dozer, and less dirt than both.
I agree I turn mine around often, handy for doing footing drains no waste of stone also for reaching into a basement or something when bucket is being hand loaded can face guys without the stick being in the way
Well that sounds a lot easier than I had thought. Right now, the breakout force I need is at least 7000lbs. I have a JD CT332 with a 2 yard bucket on it. Sometimes I cant breakout trying to lift the arms which are rated at about 7000lbs breakout. Do you think i'll have problems if I put a large bucket on an excavator?
Depends on the excavator
Your boom lift won't change, if you stay close to the pile, keep the stick tucked under a bit before you start and lift your boom slightly as you push the bucket into the pile, it should work fine.
If the bucket is fitted facing the wrong way the usual result is the snapping off the rod eye from the bucket cylinder, its common to see on self-drive excavators here in the U.K. the drivers try to blame it on anything but the fact that the bucket is on backwards?? tctractors
We run an allu smh bucket in shovel configuration on a 380 volvo, formerly on a 350 kobelco. Mind you its 4 yards and weight about 2 tonnes, but on the kobelco, every 3500 hours we would have to rebore the h link, replace the pins and side arms from being bent. The volvo, the seals in the bucket cylinder won't last 400 hours., and the side arms bent twice in 2200 hours. I think a standard bucket in compost will be just fine, but keep in mind, if you get rough with it it can get expensive.
Good info, thank you everyone. I'm going to do some sharing with a friend whose got 10 excavators. I'll get to see what its like for a few months before getting my own.
I have a manual quick coupler on my machine. I just switched the bucket around the other day to backfill a H pile and lagging wall. The fill material was all previous excavated so it was loose.
Kobelco used to use that as a sales tool that you could just reverse the bucket on there machines all the time.
We have done it with mini excavators in buildings a number of times. If we have to underpin an existing wall to dig vertical next to it we dig bucket width holes under the wall and foundation every few feet. We fill them with a 300 psi concrete slurry mix. After a couple days cure we move between and repeat until we have a solid wall. A reverse mounted bucket works great for this and you never have anyone in the hole. You do have to be careful on some machines so the bucket cylinder does not bind. I can see where a inattentive operator could break a cylinder end if not careful.
I turn the bucket backwards often, backfilling and digging. What ever it takes for less mess and getting done faster.