Seeking bucket advice

I'm a property owner who recently acquired a Volvo ECR38 (see previous thread), picture attached. I plan to use the machine to resolve various site drainage issues, for pond and creek restoration, trail construction, road/driveway maintenance and some light forest clearing. This is the only machine I own at present - I don't have a tractor/loader or a skid steer, although I have neighbors who are willing to trade/lend use of those machines from time to time. So I may end up using this excavator for tasks normally done with a loader - moving material for example and grading.

The machine came with a 12" bucket which should work well for the drainage trenches I need to dig. However I want to buy one or two larger buckets which brings me to my question: what sizes would be best? The excavators this size with thumbs (which I also want to add) seem to typically have 18" buckets. I'm also wondering if a grading/ditching bucket around the 32" size would be useful especially for moving material around more efficiently. As can hopefully be seen from the picture the machine has a wain-roy type manual quick coupler which I plan to retain for budget reasons.

Thanks for any recommendations/thoughts on this.

Yes, you'll appreciate the 18" and 32" buckets, especially with a coupler, and using it instead of a skid steer, the 32" bucket will come in handy for grading and loading loose material.

Congrats! Since you have a 12" bucket I suggest 24" as next size. You can move more material AND you can work fairly easily in a 24" trench (only if it is less than waist deep to avoid a fatal tunnel soil bank collapse). Then a 39" (or so) ditch bucket (no teeth, somewhat lighter weight construction) is really useful for ditch clean out, moving soil you have dug out, cleaning up a site, etc.

I would also skip the 18" and go to a 24".
Nice looking machine.

Ed

Good day
Suggest you consider the weight including material more so than the width of the bucket, as you increase the weight the machine will become less stable and more uncomfortable to operate, if you take a safe approach consult the operator manual in which you will find a lifting chart using the cross carriage value at full reach will be sensible and safe way to establish a safe working method & bucket capacity. I have seen figures for this machine quoting a 1/3rd of one yard.
Kind regards
Uffex

Hi David,
Until recently i was like you with just one piece of equipment and it will be fine for what you are planing.
Adding a tow ball to your blade allows the use of a trailer for shifting material around your property.
Here in aus allot of buckets for the small machines are chosen to correspond with trench size for footings on site.
I have a smaller machine and prefer 450mm but i have worked your size machine a lot and it should pull 600mm ok.
I see your 300 bucket has holes for side cutters which I use on all my buckets which will cut and extra 2 inches so you can add or remove them at will.
When i was operating your size machine the 600 was the most used digging bucket but if you struck any shail or light rock your machine will dig better with 450.
Tiger teeth also helps in tough ground and a ripper is a must if you have rocky ground.
Your 300 will dig drainage trenches but finish will be horrible unless you bolt a piece of plate on your teeth to improve the bottom.
The width of your thumb can be a pain if your doing alot of narrow trenches.
You might consider a 4way bucket which will save you fitting a thumb and i find more useful for farm work.
On my smaller machine i have a 1000mm mud bucket with reversible blade but i would recommend wider for yours.
It is hands down most used bucket and if you get close to a hydraulic tilting one even better.
sorry about metric but you can convert.
Have fun.

007 said:

The width of your thumb can be a pain if your doing alot of narrow trenches.
You might consider a 4way bucket which will save you fitting a thumb and i find more useful for farm work.

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Thanks! Until you posted this I wasn't aware 4-in-1 buckets were available for mini excavators. I'll look into this since it might save me installing a thumb. I mostly need a thumb for picking up small trees and brush.

uffex said:

Suggest you consider the weight including material more so than the width of the bucket, as you increase the weight the machine will become less stable and more uncomfortable to operate, if you take a safe approach consult the operator manual in which you will find a lifting chart using the cross carriage value at full reach will be sensible and safe way to establish a safe working method & bucket capacity. I have seen figures for this machine quoting a 1/3rd of one yard.

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Thanks. I was aware of the weight issue, and in fact I have that chart sitting on my desk! I hadn't yet done the math on the weight of gravel vs volume + bucket weight yet though.

I would go with a 24" and a clean out bucket, 36" or so. I have a 48" clean out for my 6 ton machine and it is priceless.

I don't know about buckets because here we chose buckets after how many liters they are not inches.
And we have grading buckets that are wider but the same amount of liters than an digging bucket that is more narrow.

But I'm answering because of 007's post about trailer, I've used it my self for my rely small excavator the Kubota U10 before I got my self some tracked mini dumpers and it works great.
I had an trailer with tip on and when I was excavating and moving dirt it was 10 times faster with the trailer.

40" +/- clean out/smooth no teeth bucket is necessary.

ITW said:

..............But I'm answering because of 007's post about trailer, I've used it my self for my rely small excavator the Kubota U10 before I got my self some tracked mini dumpers and it works great.
I had an trailer with tip on and when I was excavating and moving dirt it was 10 times faster with the trailer.

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What a great idea! Did you weld a plate on top of the blade and use a bolt-on trailer ball? Now I make a large pile of spoil and then use the tractor bucket to carry the spoil off - it takes a bunch of trips to make a large pile disappear.

When I ordered the Bobcat E42 (it's right around 10k pounds with a large bucket on the stick) I ordered a 12" and 24" tooth bucket, a 41" grade bucket and a ripper. I could actually use an 8" tooth bucket for 4" drain pipe but the 12" works fine. So far I'm extremely pleased with my tool choices. I just used the ripper to make a small slit trench to get some low voltage cable a few inches below the grade so the ranch critters (we raise blackbuck antelope) won't trip or attract chewing rodents. I pushed the ripper instead of digging, that worked really well but there was just the occasional small rock. Don't think this trick would work in rocky conditions.

John Canfield said:

What a great idea! Did you weld a plate on top of the blade and use a bolt-on trailer ball?

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I drilled some holes in the blade and installed one of these:

First I had it in the back of the blade because I was afraid I would damage it using the blade, but then it got to much stress going over curves because the trailer would hit the blade.
So I moved it to the front of the blade and that works great, ig take it of if I'm using the blade with big rocks only.

Hi All,
Re: Johns comments.
My blade was hollow and not strong also did not know the steel used or wanted to make a mess of my EX.
So i opted to weld four little 316s/s blocks onto a stronger part of the blade.
Means i can clean them off if need be.
Just used two high tensile bolts through standard car hitch.
Getting the tongue angle is a trick, and i machine below the ball to reduce the shaft diameter to increase the tow hitch angles.
I dont have an eight inch bucket also but i think they would be a pain for trenching as the sides of the trench would be raking down all your hyd connections and hitch.
I just made one for cabling out of some 4inch box as in Pic that goes down three feet without putting your hitch in the hole.
We have alot of farms here that just want to get there irrigation pipe covered because of fire and stock damage.
I have that piece of c channel i put on my ripper that works a treat for pipe and low voltage wires.
Its getting a bit bent and worn now but its done endless miles.
I would normally rip a grove first to get the rocks out the way then come through with that on.

ITW said:

I had an trailer with tip on and when I was excavating and moving dirt it was 10 times faster with the trailer.
View attachment 196209

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I had seen the trailer idea on youtube and it looks very interesting. However...when I went looking for suitable trailers (one that's significantly more capacity than a wheelbarrow or just the bucket) they seem to cost so much new that I may as well buy a beat up skid steer or a tractor with a loader instead. I'm keeping an eye out for any trailers that would work that appear in the local for sale listings though.

Yes your right david you are better off making a heavy duty one your self.
I used various sized trailers on mine looking for more holding capacity but the trouble i ran into was you were limited how long the trailer could be and still reach out with your bucket to push the material out.
I was only using cheap trailers with no hydraulic tipping of course.
On my little machine i got the most work out off a 6' by 4' before i eventually broke it.
My mud bucket would fit nicely down through the middle.
6x4 are as cheap as chips here and i got an amazing amount of work out of mine before it gave up the ghost.

007 said:

but the trouble i ran into was you were limited how long the trailer could be and still reach out with your bucket to push the material out.
I was only using cheap trailers with no hydraulic tipping of course.

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I saw a guy on youtube who had a rope/chain attached to a manually dumping trailer that he used with the excavator bucket to make a hydraulic dump facility, using the excavator hydraulics. Basically the bucket hooked the rope and then he pulled the dump bed up with it using the excavator. Seemed like a neat trick to avoid the need to pay for trailer hydraulic dump.

I started with building one for my little Kubota and than I made an bracket that I would hook the teeth on the bucket into for lifting the tip, it worked ok, but the trailer project never got finished because I got the blue one in the picture for $200.

Here is an model that uses an chain for lifting the tip with the excavator.
https://idmcabc.com/dump-trailers/

Hi David, Itw,
Yes your right I have seen that video but you can push the material out just as quick as lift it up and tip.
Using mud bucket off course.
Tipping using the bucket would need a trailer with with a bit of height which most domestic trailers don't have.
I wouldn't bother with tipping if me.
The trailer which i liked using the most was only a 50 dollar second hand which had angle iron under the tub for a frame so i new it was not going to last but saying that without abusing it the work it did before it gave up was worth every cent.
I would look for a cheap second hand trailer with a box frame under the floor and give it a leg up by adding a few more leafs in the springs.
If you don't abuse it the work it will do will pay for itself many time over.
a 6x4 with 2 ft sides is 1.3cum water line which is nearly 2 ton if you heap it so how much more do you want to move each trip.
The problem is the mega rocks which i have, which are so destructive.
So you have to learn to be gentle.
I am building a hydraulic tipping rock trailer at the moment out of a second hand truck diff and chassis so hopefully i can go to the next level.
Cheers

By the way ITW, i love the picture of what Norway looks like, wish my place looked like that.
Cheers