A Guide for Choosing the Type of Bucket for Your Job

Your job goes so much smoother when you have the right tools for the job. This also holds true for the type of bucket you need for your excavator.

In this post, we are going to look at trenching, ditching, and angle buckets for your excavator. We also give you some tips on the particular material used in these buckets; thus, your excavator can spend more time digging and less time being down. Hopefully, you’ll shortly have an idea of what type of bucket will be the right tool for the job.

Wear and Tear Considerations

Regardless of the style of bucket you need, there are things to consider regarding the bucket’s construction. Heavy-duty buckets and severe duty buckets both sound extremely similar.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Companies most commonly use heavy-duty buckets, due to their ability to withstand different degrees of abuse. Excavator work in gravel, clay, shale, sand, and silt are the type of materials most excavation work deals with; the heavy-duty bucket will fill the bill.

Heavy-duty buckets are made with high-quality material, have excellent side cutting abilities, and durable wear plates. These reinforce their ability to keep your excavator digging and your customers satisfied.

Severe duty buckets, as the name implies, go a bit beyond the heavy-duty buckets. They work great in abrasive material and truck loading capabilities. The abrasion-resistant construction of severe-duty buckets is ideal for digging in loose rock and pit and quarry-type jobs.

In addition to abrasion-resistant material, these buckets also have extra weld-on wear shrouds and reinforced gussets. This gives extra strength at the joints where they fit the machine, and the extra wear protection is just right for keeping the machine running and making money!

Choose the Type of Bucket You Need

We mentioned earlier there are three types of buckets for you to consider, according to the job you are doing.

Let’s consider each to get a better idea of what type of bucket you need for the work you’re doing.

Trenching buckets 

These are the ideal choice when digging trenches for any underground piping that could be used as a conduit for electrical needs or piping for water in and waste out applications. You can easily dig deep, narrow trenches, maintaining excellent breakout force and fast cycle times for the excavator.

Built from abrasion-resistant material, their benefits include lighter weight and high strength side plates and bottom wear straps for added durability. The trenching bucket should serve your trenching needs for several years without a hiccup.

Ditching buckets

Similar to regular digging buckets, but have a wider and deeper profile to operate smoother in sand, silt, and clay. You can optimize the use of a ditching bucket for loading material, backfilling, grading, and cleaning ditches for improved drainage on slopes.

Ditching buckets include a lift ‘eye’ for lifting jobs, weld-on side cutters, and a reversible bolt-on cutter edge for a cleaner and smoother finished product.

Angle tilt buckets 

The most versatile and cost-effective of the three types of buckets, especially for grading, finishing, and land clearing jobs. These buckets can rotate 45 degrees in any direction from the center and feature adjustable tilting speed from added flow control valves. Angle tilt buckets also can accomplish more work without the excavator having to reposition, making them a ‘better bang for the buck’ type of bucket.

Look at these added features of the angle tilt bucket;

• Heavy-duty components make them more durable
• Protected ‘uptime’ from the added spill and cylinder guards
• Universal hydraulic connections for quick attach/detach applications

Once you have selected the right type of bucket for your excavator, put a good maintenance plan in place to keep that excavator digging and making money!

If you need any further information on these bucket applications, feel free to give Vandalia Rental a call or go by our website for all of your excavator needs!