Has anyone heard of "Clacker" buckets? I saw them advertized in a construction mag some time back but haven't seen them since. My brother has a Bobcat w/ a backhoe and was looking for a picture of one of those buckets.
They are the wierdest buckets I've ever seen, but they are only meant for digging narrow trenches on soft or sandy soil.
Well, if you Google "clacker bucket", you get this thread for the results. So, what is a clacker bucket, and why do you want one?
They have 3 "scoops", 1 directly behind the other and the cutting edges stick out more than the first one, when you dig, just curl the bucket in, no arm force or stick, just the bucket, and it fills up the "scoops" in one clean motion. It was a weird concept that worked. Really, it did.
Hmmm...maybe a picture would help. It's Friday, my brain is shot for this week. :idea
does it look like this? still trying to imagine what you are describing. http://www.leadingedgeattachments.com/multiripperhicapbucket.htm or did it look like this drop center trenching bucket?
Nothing like that at all, the scoops were right behind the other.
like a bucket wheel excavator but with only 3 buckets?
Yuppers, but 3 small "scoops" depending on the size of machine the Klacker was going to be put on.
Question on the 2nd bucket. What is the purpose of it and how dose it or is it supposed to work? I down loaded the video and watched it a few times and all I can see is one side of the bucket dose most of if not all of the work.:beatsme Also it appears it puts more stress on one side of the stick.:beatsme Also from the video it looks as though a regular bucket with some rock ripping teeth would do just as good if not better.:beatsme Could someone please shed some light on this for me please.
The operator wasn't really using that bucket right for those conditions, although the second layer of limestone was indeed harder. Basically the bucket is designed to rip rock as the bucket gets curled in, not dragged along, one set of teeth rip and the middle set follows and the last pair also follows. The idea is that all of the bucket curl force is applied to one set of teeth in a progressive manner, if the bucket was a traditional bucket with those teeth on it, it would take a lot longer to rip through. But it only works right if it's started right, dig in layers or benches going down, and don't work from the bottom of the trench and dig up.
What is the advantage of this clacker bucket?
It was designed to be used for digging very narrow trenches, like about in the 4-12" size for the utility and small irrigation people. The unique design would give you more bucket capacity with out sacrificing weight, bucket depth or break out forces. It really worked good in the sand but even better in sticky soils because the soil wouldn't have any where to get packed into, kinda like a chuck blade on an excavator. Those who have dug with really skinny buckets on TLB's will know what I mean by the way the soil gets packed into the bucket, it's a real PITA to get it out with out making some serious noise.
Like this? http://klac-industry.com/concept/index.php?lang=us#
http://klac-industry.com/concept/klac_marguerite.php?lang=us Yup, that's the one.
Great Video of the bucket>> http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=60QQ1PDk8H4&feature=related I showed this to my father who is a lifetime operator and he thinks it is a great concept and wishes he had a chance to try one out before he retired. He remarked that it would have come in real handy on his mini for doing side sewer work. The photos do not do this thing justice, the video is much better. Dad laughed and said that he has been on jobs where it took two guys to dig out a 12" bucket every other scoop cause the stuff was so sticky. (thinks outloud) Maybe I should start up a local distributer. BTW we both laughed at the rake at the end of the video and joked about which one of us could bend it up quicker.:falldownlaugh
Thanks, Dirthauler, this is exactly what I was looking for. I have dial up connection so video on my computer takes about an hour to load up. I'll load on my brother's site (faster) & he'll see what he was looking for. ernie
The only problems with that bucket (and it all depends on how you learned to dig a trench) is it encourages you to dig the trench from the bottom up, I learned to always take long strokes going downwards to the final depth because as you pull up (in the "wrong" method) it will break the top of the trench soil and cause larger chunks to fall back and as well as making the sides of the trench unstable. This is also one of the biggest reasons we don't hire newbies anymore. ointhead