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Why dont you use a Rototilt?

Tones

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Ex land clearing contractor, part-time retired
I can go back to the days of excavators without anything on them but a standard bucket and that's what you used for everything. Then different sized buckets were made and the quickhitch was developed, if you didn't have one then you didn't get the work. Tilt mud/batter buckets became the rage, now they are like a## holes, everyone has got one. Some have gone a little further and some got tilt hitches and all the nay sayers said they wouldn't last/ to expensive etc but have a look which excavator stays on site the longest. I see Rototilt as another step in the evolution of excavators and may become the norm rather than the exception just as all the attachment I've listed above.
 

Scrub Puller

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Gladstone Queensland Australia
Yair . . .

Tones. Well said. I have been expressing the same sentiments but you put it so much better.

As I have always said forums such as this are interesting in as much as folks can get an understanding as to how things are done in other places.

I find the industry inability to justify tilt and twist in the American market quite amazing . . . they seem to be even running pin on buckets in many cases.

I was watching an artist on a Kobelco recently on the Gold Coast and over a half hour period he might have on two different buckets, a ripper and then grab the trench roller and pack a bit of back fill for the boys.

Bulk production baling is about the only place down there you see a pin on bucket.

There is no doubt some of the folks on here are artists judging from the posted pictures of their work but in a competitive environment unless they upgraded with attachments they wouldn't get a job.

The other interesting thing is thumbs and they seem to be pretty much a US thing . . . I note one poster upthread reckoned he needed a thumb for 90% of his work.

I have mentioned thumbs to one bloke I know in the excavator game and his comment was they were "neither your arse nor your elbow and were a half baked waste of time" (to use his words) if he needs one he clips on a proper grapple . . . with tilt and twist . . . and does the job properly.

Cheers.
 
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movindirt

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under a shady tree
Yair . . .

Tones. Well said. I have been expressing the same sentiments but you put it so much better.

As I have always said forums such as this are interesting in as much as folks can get an understanding as to how things are done in other places.

I find the industry inability to justify tilt and twist in the American market quite amazing . . . they seem to be even running pin on buckets in many cases.

I was watching an artist on a Kobelco recently on the Gold Coast and over a half hour period he might have on two different buckets, a ripper and then grab the trench roller and pack a bit of back fill for the boys.

Bulk production baling is about the only place down there you see a pin on bucket.

There is no doubt some of the folks on here are artists judging from the posted pictures of their work but in a competitive environment unless they upgraded with attachments they wouldn't get a job.

The other interesting thing is thumbs and they seem to be pretty much a US thing . . . I note one poster upthread reckoned he needed a thumb for 90% of his work.

I have mentioned thumbs to one bloke I know in the excavator game and his comment was they were "neither your arse nor your elbow and were a half baked waste of time" (to use his words) if he needs one he clips on a proper grapple . . . with tilt and twist . . . and does the job properly.

Cheers.

I have to say I agree with you, but say I am doing tree clearing 90% of the time, well then a $10k thumb works just as good as a $40k rototilt and grapple setup doesn't it? And if I am ripping out the stumps with the same machine how much breakout force am I going to lose with the extra length and weight of the rotator? It definitely has its place, but there are still a lot of applications where it wouldn't save much time or add to much production in my opinion.
 

Scrub Puller

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Yair . . .

Gotcha movindirt. I understand where you are coming from.

I just comment out of interest and pass on stuff I hear and see.

As others have commented different machines and methods are used for essentially the same jobs in different areas, there is no right or wrong way, it's what is cost efficient in your environment.

Cheers.
 

pafarmer

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Land clearing, demo, site prep etc. Ex Pro Motocro
I have one on each of my excavator including my mini. Couldn't live without one now. Expensive as heck but worth it in my humble opinion and Yes I am American...
 

Tones

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Ubique
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Ex land clearing contractor, part-time retired
I have to say I agree with you, but say I am doing tree clearing 90% of the time, well then a $10k thumb works just as good as a $40k rototilt and grapple setup doesn't it? And if I am ripping out the stumps with the same machine how much breakout force am I going to lose with the extra length and weight of the rotator? It definitely has its place, but there are still a lot of applications where it wouldn't save much time or add to much production in my opinion.
movindirt, an outfit over here has a grab with continuous 360deg rotation and a saw. It can push over trees, stumps and all or cut em up to length and stack em, pretty much what you could do with a rototilt but without the saw on a Cat 325 and is a few years old now and has no problems. www.brennancontracting.net.au. That machine is doing landclearing most of the time I believe.
 
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td25c

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Feb 14, 2009
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Location
indiana
Yair . . .



As I have always said forums such as this are interesting in as much as folks can get an understanding as to how things are done in other places.

I find the industry inability to justify tilt and twist in the American market quite amazing . . . they seem to be even running pin on buckets in many cases.









Cheers.

Not to mention those knuckleheads running Detroit power in the excavator .... LOL!:D
http://s1016.photobucket.com/user/td25c/media/100_3211_zpsunyltjhf.mp4.html?sort=3&o=0

That Roto Tilt is pretty cool . Could see it being handy for sure . It would be cost prohibitive for myself .

Proper positioning of machine still gets the job done as always .
 

Scrub Puller

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Gladstone Queensland Australia
Yair . . . Good one td25c. I'm not calling any one a knuckle head for running anything . . . it's just what works in any given situation.

You folks just do things different and, as I have said, that is the joy of this board, it creates a place where old farts like me can come to keep our brains active and continue to learn how an industry that we once worked in and . . . dare I say? . . . Loved, is evolving.

I think the demise of the concept of the Detroit was one of the tragedies of our time . . . not the engine perhaps although the sound and smell of a GM for me today is,believe it or not, quite an emotional thing.

What I mean is the concept of an engine family from two cylinders to twenty four cylinders, suitable for any application from stationary generator set, marine, automotive, left, hand right hand rotation, lay them down on their side, dry sump and run with a vertical crankshaft an absolutely unique piece of machinery of which we will never see the equal.

Love them or hate them they made a lot of money for a lot of people and I never heard of anyone suffering or going broke because their GM let them down.

That's all. (Big grin)

Cheers
 

pafarmer

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Great post scrub...The first detriot /GM motor I ever owned was pulled from a dozer and placed in a haul truck, after many years of use in the truck I pulled it again and now have it set up as a generator that powers my entire farm when the power goes out which is quite often in the rural area where I live....I too am a huge fan of the sound and smell of the old Detriog without this forum I would have no insight into what other like minded people around the globe do to make a living in the dirt.....great post my friend...
 

td25c

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indiana
Well said Scrub .:thumbsup

I still use the standard pin on bucket setup & manual thumb. But at the same time, I don't change buckets multiple times during the day . Takes about 10 minutes to swap from general purpose tooth to ditching bucket . Not to big of a deal .

Also on most jobs generally have excavator teamed up with a dozer or tracked skid loader . On a drainage project now in farmed river bottoms doing some erosion control & ditch cleaning . Took tracked skid loader & backhoe /combo , dump truck , and excavator . Each one has it's place .

I could see this Roto Tilt being handy when in tight quarters where you cant get the machine positioned correct .

For myself if I decided I had to have the bucket "tilt feature ", would probably buy an older Gradall unit .

Tracked
http://www.machinerytrader.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=9603155

On rubber truck mount .
http://www.machinerytrader.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=9400403
 

cdm123

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Nov 12, 2009
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272
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manitoba canada
Does any one have any experience regarding swing components? Seams like working side ways might put un planed "buy engineers" stresses on components.
 

CM1995

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Alabama
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Running what I brung and taking what I win
My excavator has a pin on bucket and manual thumb and it does everything I need it to do. I wouldn't mind a hyd thumb and quick coupler on the 321 I currently have but I've had that setup before on a 321 and the weight those components added to the end of the stick in addition to the cost isn't worth it to me.

Each to their own equipment and methods. What works for many in one location doesn't necessarily translate into working for everyone somewhere else.
 

qball

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Dec 30, 2007
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il
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local 150 operator
I really think it's funny how America/Americans are so slow to embrace technology that can make us more productive.
 

fixou812

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Dec 17, 2013
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Buffalo NY
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Millwright Equipment Mechanic Welder
here in the states it's called a shovel and Exercise

Doc says it's good for you!
Thanks for the humor Denny. ....i could buy a mini for seventeen
But then I'd be fat
just want i need. ...more stuff to fix
 

245dlc

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Canada
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Heavy Equipment Operator
A couple years ago I was fortunate enough to get some work where I was running a 5 tonne mini-excavator with an Indexator Rototilt, the boss told me it added $20,000CAD to the overall price but was well worth it for the golf course construction work that they did. It didn't have the proportional hydraulics that are commonly seen in Europe but it did make digging narrow trenches for a weeping tile system across a fairway much simpler as I didn't have to disturb as much turf as I would of if I had done it with a regular trenching. The only thing it couldn't do was clean out the narrow trenching bucket as I was digging in sticky Red River Gumbo. There is still a lot of work I could do without one but it could make more of a mess, cost more money, and reduce overall efficiency. I think we could see more tilt-rotators if they were produced on this side of the pond by some of the already long established bucket and attachment manufacturers. Just look at the logging industry they've been using grapples with rotator functions for many years. The big thing that interests me about what some of the tilty-rotating thingy's have in Europe is the Oil Quick option where there is no jumping out and connecting and disconnecting hoses, plus they are usually routed in such a way that they aren't hanging in harms way for guys that are doing demolition work.
A couple pictures from one of those jobs I was on, the bosses sadly weren't to crazy about me taking pictures or making any youtube videos they figured health and safety was going to skin them alive or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ytTOWid_g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzFNtcQBW-4
 

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Scrub Puller

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Yair . . . 245dlc

Around here topsoil can be a very scarce commodity and of the applications I saw recently was a largish Hitachi scraping clean a rough and undulating hillside with what looked like about a six foot wide purpose built bucket.

He was there for several days preparing for a road cut and I can safely say that no other machine other than an excavator with tilt and twist could have done that job . . . in other words the equipment provided twenty or thirty hours of specialised work where without the ability to do it the job would not exist.

As have mentioned up thread I am only an interested observer but I have shifted a lot of dirt and I can see that in a competitive market the money spent on specialised tools would be recouped many times over . . . one of the posters mentioned the last machine off the job is the one that made the dollars.

While we are on this subject apparently there is a small European excavator that rather than tilt the bucket has side to side articulation of boom and they just run a quick hitch and rotator on the stick.

Cheers.
 

pafarmer

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883
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Somewhere in the woods !
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Land clearing, demo, site prep etc. Ex Pro Motocro
We do allot of stream reclamation work. And in the tight confines of these stream beds and banks nothing else will do. The quality of our work has grow in orders of magnitude by using the rotators. The added cost is a problem at first but certainly worth the expense when doing that type of work if your being graded by some state employee college grad with the piece of paper that says he knows What he's doing...I need to get a camera, note to self....anyone have experience with those GOPRO camera ? Worth the investment ? I would really like to show some of the work we do and the place we take our equipment....any input is appreciated...
 

245dlc

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Canada
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Heavy Equipment Operator
We do allot of stream reclamation work. And in the tight confines of these stream beds and banks nothing else will do. The quality of our work has grow in orders of magnitude by using the rotators. The added cost is a problem at first but certainly worth the expense when doing that type of work if your being graded by some state employee college grad with the piece of paper that says he knows What he's doing...I need to get a camera, note to self....anyone have experience with those GOPRO camera ? Worth the investment ? I would really like to show some of the work we do and the place we take our equipment....any input is appreciated...

Yeah I've got two gopro's don't think I'll buy another one though with how expensive they are I think the new one is around $600CAD. I think when I hunt around for another video camera I'm going to see what else is on the market but for the most part they are reliable and easy to use.

http://shop.gopro.com/hero4/hero4-black/CHDHX-401.html
 
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