Types and Functions of Mini Excavator Buckets

29 July 2016

Mini diggers are small in stature but endowed with larger-than-life excavating abilities. The compact excavators are versatile and light, fast and capable, but mini excavator buckets still crown this enviable feature set, for there’s a growing number of bolt-on buckets coming to market. Let’s explore available bucket types and see what these talented attachments can do.

Hydraulic Clamping Buckets

Perfect for clearing sharp-edged scrap and unwieldy chunks of lumber, these buckets use a hinged two-part design. The two sections assume a plated solid outline or a two-pronged forking profile, all the better to ensure loose loads are properly ensnared between the jaws of the bucket.

The Trusty 4-in-1 Attachment

When describing mini excavator buckets, they don’t come more versatile than this multifunctional attachment. Two bucket halves snap together to create a clamshell, a locked carrying space that snaps up gravel and bags of concrete. Next, when digging duties dictate the work, the halves transform into a digging and grading scoop. Finally, those transforming shells split apart to reveal sharp edges, parts that enable the scoop halves to function as grabbing jaws.

Standard Buckets VS. Heavy-Duty Buckets

Conventional functionality is addressed by both types. The first manufacturing variable to receive attention on a standard bucket is its dimensions. Narrow buckets are particularly popular on compact excavators because they quickly carve out trenches, but broader variants also find employment as ground preparation tools. Meanwhile, heavy-duty buckets are equipped with thicker and heavier plating, the materials needed to work on rock and clay-heavy soil.

What about Ditching and Tilting Work?

Teeth and sharp edges leave this scenario along with most of the heavy plating mentioned in our last example. Instead, rotary actuators work alongside dual clamshell halves to tilt the bucket and create clean-edged ditches. Ditching buckets alter this shape ever so slightly by adding a rigid top section and a sloped front edge. Auxiliary hydraulic valves are sometimes added to this type of bucket, for these muscular supplementary parts help the bucket to slide past deep roots and stubborn rocks.

There are a few more notable mini excavator buckets to cover, but they’re all basically defined as variations on a theme. For example, graves are dug by mini diggers, and the buckets used are shallower but sized perfectly for digging out regular edges. Look at the dimensions, capacity, and added cutting edges to understand that this is another scenario that favours the “proper tool for the proper job” maxim.