Which bucket to use

[dozerduded6r]

Recently purchased a cat 315c with a 4 ft dirt bucket. We need to dip a ditch but it has 6-12" trees 20ft along both sides and down to the bottom of the 10ft deep ditch. I feel we need to use our d6r on top first to clear saplings then work with the315c. I feel I can just reach the bottom with no extra boom.This is my first tree clearing/ditch cleaning job with an excavator. The 4 ft bucket is a load by itself when boom is stretched out all the way. This 315 does not have any aux. hydralics: We are in the market for extra buckets. What bucket do you experenced operators think would work good for this application. It took me 40 minutes to type this much!! Thanks for your imput. Thanks to all military veterans.

 

[stumpjumper83]

A 4' bucket on a 315 will probably end up being your everyday bucket for that machine. Usually you see a 315 w/ a 4' & a min stick width bucket which i think is 27". 4' does 90% of the work, occasionally for tight rock and narrow ditches the 27 comes out. If it was my machine, I'd be looking at a thumb more than other buckets.

As for the ditch cleaning job, without seeing it, I'd tackle the trees first. Might try it with the bucket and a new set of teeth first. Could knock it all down with the 6, then rake it out with the hoe, but keep everything going one direction when you knock it down. Then I'd prolly use the 6 to clean the ditch and the hoe to load out the piles that the dozer pushes up.

 

[Jim Dandy]

I have a Hitachi 160 with a 3 foot bucket and in my area with hard clay and some rock the 160 doesn't rip right through when digging a ditch and I imagine it would be much slower with a 4 foot bucket. I have thought about a 4 foot bucket for loading trucks but the truck better be pretty close in. my machine would be pretty tipsy with a 4' bucket full of dirt stretched out.

 

[EZ TRBO]

Grew up on a cat 312 and all we ever ran was the 4' bucket, just a general duty dirty bucket...which got used in rock, dirt, mud, etc. Wore one out in about 3k hours, but had alot of rip rap laid with it, as well as some demolition work. We have a narrower rock bucket that came off an old Bantam which worked great for pipe work etc. That narrow bucket was nice but always just used the 4 footer for 95% of all digging.
Good luck.
Trbo

 

[dayexco]

i'd use a frost hook, and pick/stack them in the truck by hand...wtf dif does it make what width of the bucket?

 

[dozerduded6r]

I like the idea of a mechanical thumb. Never heard of a frost hook. As far as bucket width, I was just trying to keep the weight off the end of the stick.The thumb will add about 1000lbs I think. All of these trees are junk. The few bigger ones are firewood. The rest will be put on brushpiles to be burnt.

 

[S.R.E.]

I like the idea of a mechanical thumb. Never heard of a frost hook. As far as bucket width, I was just trying to keep the weight off the end of the stick.The thumb will add about 1000lbs I think. All of these trees are junk. The few bigger ones are firewood. The rest will be put on brushpiles to be burnt.

IMO mechanical thumbs suck. If your going to do much clearing you might be best to get a progressive link hydraulic thumb. They also make stump splitters with "teeth" on the back that work great for removing and splitting stumps. They also make extra counterweights that bolt on to the existing counterweight at the bottom to counter the extra weight on the stick.

 

[Jim Dandy]

I forgot to mention that my 160 has a mechanical thumb

 

[LSchulz]

IMO mechanical thumbs suck. If your going to do much clearing you might be best to get a progressive link hydraulic thumb.

Agreed!

 

[curtkeiser]

i'd use a frost hook, and pick/stack them in the truck by hand...wtf dif does it make what width of the bucket?

What do you mean by "pick/stack" ? I am new to an excavator. Thanks

 

[buckfever]

we have 4' buckets on both our 160 hitachie and our 135 JD. The diference is the way they build the bucket. The 160 is deeper and allows you to move more material. Depending on the material a 4'er should be ok but it's always good to have a 2'er as back-up incase things get tough. Do you have a quick-copler? If you do you are more likely to use the right atachment at the right time. Which will make you much faster.