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Choosing an excavator for your job is only the first step in acquiring the tools you need. Whether they’re mini or large, excavators are incredibly versatile because of the available bucket and attachment options. Given the many types of backhoe and excavator buckets on the market, a lot of factors contribute to finding the right bucket for the job.
From understanding excavator bucket dimensions to learning about the different excavator bucket types, this guide will teach you how to choose the right excavator bucket for your needs.
When choosing an excavator bucket, the first thing to consider is the specific application and type of material you are handling. You typically want to find the biggest bucket for your job, taking into account the material density and the size of the hauler truck.
Remember the weight of the bucket limits your cycle time, and the bucket only becomes heavier when loaded with heavy materials. As a general rule, use a small excavator bucket for higher-density materials to avoid slowed productivity. You want to be able to load your hauler truck quickly with as few cycles as possible to reduce fuel consumption, wear, and downtime.
Different applications can also require specific types of buckets. For example, you wouldn’t be able to dig an 18-inch trench with a 30-inch bucket. Some buckets have features to handle certain types of materials. A rock bucket has a V-shaped cutting edge, and long, sharp teeth that can break through hard rock and push heavy loads with more power. A digging bucket is known to handle hard soil. Consider the type and density of your material and ensure you select a bucket that is capable of lifting it.
An excavator can do anything from digging trenches and laying pipes, to landscaping and moving snow. Several bucket types enable an excavator to handle various materials within these applications. While there are also many specialty buckets available, the five most popular buckets include:
A general-purpose bucket has the most versatility and is appropriate for many excavating tasks. It is also known as a digging bucket, and it is the standard attachment that comes with an excavator. If you rent an excavator without specifying a bucket, you’ll probably receive a general-purpose bucket. It comes with short, blunt teeth that work great on soil and are available in many sizes for various applications.
Here are some of the materials you can move with an all-purpose excavator bucket:
You can also find wear-protection components to allow an all-purpose excavator to work with more abrasive materials.
Grading buckets stand out for their smooth edges, wide construction, and flat cutting edges. They also have lift eyes, weld-on side cutters, and reversible bolt-on cutting edges. This construction creates smooth edges for all digging areas and works best with soft materials and soils. Grading buckets, also called clean-up or ditching buckets, have a lot of versatility for loading material, grading, leveling, back-filling, sloping, and cleaning ditches for improved drainage.
When you know how to use a grading bucket, you can use it for many applications, including:
A heavy-duty or severe-duty bucket is usually made from high-strength, abrasion-resistant steel. Because of their superior durability, these attachments are often used in rock quarries to load trucks with high-density material in fewer passes.
Cat® excavator buckets come in general-, heavy-, severe-, and extreme-duty varieties. They provide enhanced digging for heavy or abrasive materials, such as:
Severe- and extreme-duty buckets can handle even heavier materials, including:
Like a grading bucket, a trenching bucket is used for trench digging. It works well for narrow cable trenches, pipe culverts, and drains. It has a narrow shape, a sharp, flat blade, and an extended front section for better access. This tool can dig deep trenches while maintaining a fast cycle time. A trenching bucket should be used for high-precision jobs, such as digging around pipes.
This narrow bucket looks almost claw-like and is used to dig deep trenches that are only a few inches wide. It can save contractors a significant amount of time in backfilling and digging. It can also be known as a fiber-optic bucket because it is useful for creating trenches for laying fiber-optic cables, irrigation systems, and pipes.
An angle tilt bucket has many of the same applications as a grading bucket — with the added feature of 45-degree rotation in either direction. Because of the tilting ability, these buckets are useful for creating precise slopes. They also allow an excavator to move or shape more land without changing positions as frequently. These features may allow you to experience increased uptime with heavy-duty construction.
Angle tilt buckets come in many sizes for a variety of applications, such as:
A tilt ditch cleaning bucket does exactly what its name suggests. This specialized cleaning bucket shares a similar design to a grading bucket. It can tilt at a 45-degree angle to allow the operator to work at difficult angles. Many consider this a “finishing” bucket used at the end of a project for tidying and creating smooth finishes.
Visually, a skeleton bucket closely resembles a digging bucket. However, there is a major difference between the two. A skeleton bucket has large slots that work like a grid on its back. This is used to let fine materials filter through it, leaving behind larger materials.
The skeleton bucket is a versatile tool that does two things at once. It works as a usual excavation bucket that simultaneously separates stones, concrete, and trash from useful or building materials.
Utility buckets are incredibly useful tools when excavating near pipelines and cables. When cables are struck, it can harm the excavation crew and affect the system they are connected to. With a utility bucket, a crew can work without worrying about the risks of striking cables.
The bucket is double-enforced by using rounded edges rather than teeth, improving structural integrity. This bucket type is best suited for working near gas lines, water and sewerage pipes, and underground cables.
Besides the most commonly used buckets, you can find a variety of specialty bucket designs to use for specific jobs:
With so many types of excavator buckets, it’s a good idea to consider renting one when you need to accomplish a particular task. If you plan to use the bucket for many jobs, you can save money by buying a used excavator bucket. If choosing a previously owned or rented bucket, you need to understand how to inspect for damage or repairs. Look for the following elements:
Most construction projects benefit from a bucket that will increase productivity by reducing the number of passes the tool needs to make. Select the biggest excavator bucket that won’t compromise efficiency — except when you have a particular size requirement, like when digging a trench.
Remember that the bucket you use on a 20-ton excavator would be far too big for an 8-ton excavator. A bucket that’s too big will require the machine to do more work, and each cycle will take longer, reduce efficiency, or cause the excavator to topple over.
Generally, a range of bucket sizes will work for the excavator you have. Mini excavator bucket sizes can range from specialty 6-inch buckets to 36-inch buckets. Keep in mind that some sizes only apply to grading buckets, and you shouldn’t use other types of buckets with those dimensions.
To see what size of bucket is possible for the weight of your excavator, use this excavator bucket size chart:
Each job’s bucket capacity depends on the size of your bucket and the material you are handling. Bucket capacity combines the material fill factor and density, the hourly production requirement, and cycle time. You can calculate your bucket’s capacity for a particular project in five steps:
To tool your excavator bucket for whatever applications you have in store, you can customize the bucket with many add-on features:
The best time to replace the teeth is before they wear down entirely and expose the bucket adapter. To fit the bucket with new teeth, follow these nine steps:
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When you’re ready to shop excavator buckets or need expert advice for your job site and machine, partner with the local leaders in tractor parts and repairs. We have a wide selection of Cat equipment attachments for excavators — whether you’re in the market for new or used buckets. Get the parts you need fast from the experts with over 60 years of experience in the business.
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If you are importing products from China, there are five basic steps you should take to maximize your likelihood of getting the right product and the right quality. Defective or dangerous products will almost never be returned to China, and your supplier is unlikely to redo them for you “free”. Take these five steps to save you time and money.
1. Find the right supplier.
Many importers find good samples at trade shows, get good quotes from companies believed to have made them, and then think their supplier search is over. Choosing your supplier this way is risky. Online directories (such as Alibaba) and trade shows are just a starting point. Suppliers pay to be listed or exhibited, and they are not rigorously screened.
If your contact claims to own a factory, you can verify the claim by running a background check on his company. Then you should visit the factory or order a capacity audit (about $1000). Try to find some customers and call them. Make sure the factory is familiar with your market regulations and standards.
If your order is small, it is usually best to avoid very large manufacturers as they may quote a higher price and not care about your order. However, smaller plants often require closer monitoring, especially during the first production run. Forewarned: showing a good plant and then subcontracting production to a smaller plant is very common and the source of many quality problems. Your contract with a supplier should prohibit subcontracting.
2. Clearly define your desired product.
Some buyers will approve pre-production samples and proforma invoices and then wire the deposit. That’s not enough. What about safety standards in your country? What about the label of your product? Is the packing strong enough to protect your cargo during transit?
These are just some of the many things you and your supplier should agree on in writing before money changes hands.
I recently worked with an American importer who told his Chinese supplier, “The quality standards should be the same as your other American customers.” Of course, when the American importer started having problems, the Chinese supplier responded, “Our other American customers have never complained, so it’s not a problem.”
The key is to write your product expectations into a detailed specification sheet that leaves no room for interpretation. Your methods for measuring and testing these specifications, as well as tolerances, should also be included in this document. If the specifications are not met, your contract should specify the amount of penalty.
If you are developing a new product with a Chinese manufacturer, you should make sure to document the characteristics of the product and the production process, as you cannot rely on your supplier to give you this information if you later choose to transfer to another factory.
3. Negotiate reasonable payment terms.
The most common method of payment is bank transfer. Standard terms are 30% down payment before purchasing components and the remaining 70% is paid after the supplier faxes the bill of lading to the importer. If molds or special tools are required during development, it can become more complex.
Suppliers who insist on better terms are usually trying to rip you off. I recently worked with a buyer who was so confident he would receive a good product that he paid full price before making it. Needless to say, the delivery was late. Besides, there were some quality problems.
He had no means to take appropriate corrective action.
Another common method of payment is irrevocable letter of credit. Most serious exporters will accept l/C if you stipulate reasonable terms.
You can send the draft to your supplier for approval before your bank officially “opens” the credit. Bank fees are higher than wire transfers, but you’ll be better protected. I suggest using l/C for new suppliers or large orders.
4. Control the quality of your products in the factory.
How do you ensure that your suppliers meet your product specifications? You can go to the factory yourself for supervision, or appoint a third-party inspection company to manage the process for you (third-party quality control companies cost less than $300 for most shipments).
The most common type of quality control is the final random inspection of a statistically valid sample. This statistically valid sample gives professional inspectors enough speed and cost to effectively draw conclusions about the entire production run.
In some cases, quality control should also be carried out earlier in order to detect problems before all production is completed. In this case, the inspection should be done before the components are embedded in the final product or just after the first finished product is rolled off the production line. In these cases, some samples can be taken and sent for laboratory testing.
To take full advantage of QC inspection, you should first define the product specification sheet (see section 2 above), which then becomes the inspector’s checklist. Second, your payment (see section 3 above) should be tied to quality approval. If you pay by wire transfer, you should not wire the balance until your product has passed final inspection. If you pay by l/C, the documents required by your bank should include a quality control certificate issued by your nominated QC company.
5. Formalize the previous steps.
Most importers are unaware of two facts. First, an importer can Sue a Chinese supplier, but it only makes sense to do so in China – unless the supplier has assets in another country. Second, your purchase order will help your supplier’s defense; They almost certainly won’t help you.
To reduce the risk, you should purchase your product under an OEM agreement (preferably in Chinese). This contract will reduce your chances of problems and give you more leverage when they do occur.
My final piece of advice is to make sure you have the whole system in place before you start negotiating with potential suppliers. This will show them that you are a professional importer and they will respect you for it. They are more likely to agree to your request because they know you can easily find another supplier. Perhaps most importantly, if you start rushing to put the system in place after you’ve already placed an order, it becomes more difficult and inefficient.
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