The construction industry is constantly growing and changing to keep up with the needs and demands of the users and operators in it. Where having the correct equipment for the job is essential. So, choosing the appropriate excavator bucket for your machines are necessary to efficiently tackle the specifications of the job and the type of material you are handling. There are now a huge selection of different types of buckets, so you might not know where to start if you're new or just looking to try something else. We have complied a list of 10 Different types of Excavator Buckets and what we believe are their best uses.
Also known as a General Purpose Bucket, the Digging Bucket is the attachment you will most likely recognise. The Digging Bucket is the most common bucket provided with Excavators / Diggers when sold or hired out. It's primary use is what the name suggests, it's designed for digging in construction environments as well as standard ground soil in landscaping or groundworks.
The Digging Bucket is most commonly seen with Teeth fitted, to help penetrate tougher, more compact ground. The teeth break up the material allowing you to scrape it up into the bucket to be moved or removed. They can also come with a blade fitted, instead of the teeth, to create a flat bottom to your trench or to be used around utilities.
These buckets usually come in a large variety of widths to best suit the job at hand. For example: Rhinox Mini Digging Buckets are available in 6", 9", 12", 18" and 24" to best suit the application- whether that be digging a narrow trench or clearing a larger area.
Although a durable bucket, the Digging Bucket may not always be the most suitable bucket for your digging job. The Rock Bucket is a more heavy duty version of the standard Digging Bucket.
Rock Buckets are reinforced with much stronger and thicker wear plates to add 'bulk' to the bucket and have sharper teeth than a standard Digging Bucket. These additions reinforce the bucket for use in much harsher conditions and help penetrate solid materials. The best use is the continuous breaking up of rocks and extremely abrasive, compact materials, like in a Quarry (hence the name Rock Bucket).
The Utility Bucket is a modification of the standard Digging Bucket - it was initially created to help protect utility workers when digging near utilities as it deflects cables away from the bucket.
The unique Uni Tusk Blade System is an innovative design by Rhinox. It has been manufactured as a Bolt on Edge option to replace Teeth or alternative Blade Options. As well as the improved safety for utility works, the rounded, cast steel blade locks the side plates and lip plate in place, to increase the structural integrity of your bucket. It is also heat treated to 550 HB to further maximise the wear strength for continuous digging in harsh conditions.
This bucket is known by a wide variety of names, including: Dyking Bucket, Finishing Bucket or Ditch Cleaning Bucket. The Grading Bucket is a wide, shallow bucket used for levelling and profiling the ground prior to further works. The low profile shell design was designed to increase the width of the bucket without increasing the weight, as not to overload your excavator.
As mentioned, these buckets are best used for profiling, particularly softer materials and aggregates. The wider shell enables you to cover a wider distance in one motion. These buckets create a smooth finish to the material you're profiling due to the flat edge of the bucket, as well as the flat bottom. But they can also be used for a variety of other tasks such as: cleaning ditches, loading material, back-filling and sloping.
The Grading Bucket is commonly fitted with a Bolt-on Blade to strengthen the lip plate and provide additional resistance, to prolong the life of your bucket. For more information on Bolt-on Blades on Grading Buckets, click here.
The Tilt Ditching Bucket is exactly what the name suggests, it is a Ditching Bucket that is able to tilt. It is the all in one solution to grading and profiling on an angle. This bucket is manufactured with a hydraulic hook up to allow it to tilt from left to right, which provides greater flexibility when working on more complex forms and shapes, such as: levelling slopes, cleaning ditches, maintaining sloped landscaping and more.
The Rhinox Tilt Ditching Bucket is specifically manufactured with 1 Ram to allow you to tilt 45 degrees in both directions and plugs into your standard auxiliary or hammer hydraulics making it quick and easy to attach them ready for work.
6. V Bucket
The V Bucket is a triangular shaped bucket, designed to form clean sided, sloped drainage trenches. They are also commonly used for digging V shaped trenches used for laying pipes, cables or similar. These buckets are usually manufactured for larger excavators due to the complex design and assembly procedures required to create the trapezium shape.
7. Frost Bucket / Hardpan Bucket
A Frost Bucket or Hardpan Bucket looks and performs similarly to a Rock Bucket but has a bonus feature...a Ripper Tooth style attachment fitted to the reverse of the bucket. Depending on the manufacturers design, they might fit multiple of these Ripper Teeth style features.
The purpose of these additions is to further increase the digging ability. They provide additional penetration to help break up extremely compacted grounds, where your standard Digging or Rock Bucket can't quite cut it - helping to loosen rocks and other aggregates as the bucket curls round.
8. Micro Trenching Bucket
Also known as a Deep Dig or Fibre Optic Bucket, the Micro Trenching Bucket is a much narrower bucket than any other. It is designed for digging trenches of only a few inches wide and can usually be manufactured for a digging depth of around 400 to 700 mm deep.
This bucket was initially designed for digging narrow trenches for the installation of Fibre Optic Cables but is now frequently used for many other applications such as: laying standard cables, pipes and irrigation.
The main benefit of these narrower trenches is the time spent on digging, backfilling and remediating surfaces. The Micro Trenching Bucket dramatically reduces the amount of time taken to dig out the initial trench but also the amount of time spent backfilling the area you have dug out. As well as this, a large amount of money can be saved on materials usually required to reinstate the surface to it's initial condition, such as retarmacking a public footpath.
9. Riddle Bucket
The Riddle Bucket is also referred to as the Skeleton Bucket, due to its design and structure and a Shaker Bucket due to the action required to use it. This bucket is manufactured with a slotted back and is used for separating different types of aggregates. They are primarily used on building sites where specific aggregates in the ground can be removed and reused or removed and recycled.
A majority of the time it is more cost effective to separate the aggregates on site and have them collected or repurposed, rather than completely discarded as mixed aggregates. These buckets are best used for removing larger items like bricks, tree roots and pipes from the finer materials like soil and smaller stone aggregates.
Besides the slotted back, Riddle Buckets have a similar shell design to that of a Digging Bucket. This means that they are widely available, in a variety of sizes, to fit most makes of excavator.
This bucket is a combination of your standard Land Clearance Rake Attachment and a Riddle Bucket. It is a shallow bucket, with a slotted back and narrow tines along the front edge of the bucket.
As the name suggest, the Rake Riddle Bucket allows you to rake through materials in the ground like tree roots or brambles and then riddle of bricks and larger rocks in one movement.
The Rake Riddle Bucket can save you money. As well as the space required to store two separate attachments, you also save money on purchasing and maintaining two separate attachments. This combination bucket saves you money, time and space as you are only having to buy, maintain and store one attachment.
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