Making the Bucket Better

[chim]

Was finally able to spend some time doing the standard mods to the bucket on the new-to-us L4240HSTC. This is the third FEL bucket of mine to receive an angle iron chain slot of some sort and a cutting edge. This cutting edge is more of a wearing edge in case it gets pressed into service for snow removal. It's just a sacrificial piece and not sharpened like the last two.
Whole lot of drilling and 1/2-13 tapping to do that.

It produced about a quart of tailings that I gathered with one of my switched magnets. Grabbing most of the metal debris was as simple as dangling the (turned-on) Magswitch from a piece of paracord to pick the stuff up and then hold it over an old plastic container and turn it off. Worked great.

The cutting edge install took a good part of a day itself. The slotted angle only took about an hour to mount. I punched the slots and mounting holes on the Piranha at work earlier this week. The slots were simply a matter of punching holes, then I used a DeWalt cordless band saw to cut in from the edge to turn them into slots.

 

[Tim Horton]

Real Nice !!

 

[seanbarr]

Interesting... I like the sacrificial edge thing... what type of steel is it?


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[chim]

Interesting... I like the sacrificial edge thing... what type of steel is it?


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Just a piece of plain carbon flat bar I found. Nothing special. I'll watch for a thicker piece of stainless like I used on the L3200, but this will preserve the factory edge till then.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Not much of a 'cutting edge' from what I see. It's blunt, not ground/milled to a tapered point. Not a bad idea though but if it was me, I would have milled the edge to a tapered point.

Not sure about the chain hook top rail. I just loop the chain around the bucket but most times I'll use the pallet fork attachment.

 

[RCW]

A quart of tailings? Wow - that's a lot of drilling with a cordless!

Bet you could see that in your sleep!

Great job Chim!

 

[chim]

The cutting edge / wearing edge is a temporary piece as I described to protect the factory edge. It did fine this morning cleaning up some small piles left by the rear blades on the Kubota and Ford. The factory edge on my first Kubota showed a lot of wear after just one snow season. We don't always have a piece of 1/2" thick stainless laying around to fab a real edge like the L3200 has in the center picture below.

Since I began using slotted angle on the first Kubota back in 2002, it has proven very handy and plenty strong. Chains can be dropped in front of the bucket or behind it and used for many things. The most common is lifting and providing extra slots to keep unused tails of chains from getting in the way. My brush forks are picked up and held via chains, slotted angle and a ratchet strap.

The DeWalt 20V didn't have any trouble poking the holes, but did use nearly two 5AH batteries for all the drilling.

 

[Ping]

Chim,
Looks great! Like the 1pc length of chain slot. Definitely gives you a lot of options.
If you don't mind my asking, what size material did you use for your brush forks? I may want to steal that idea as well.
Regards

 

[dalola]

Well chim, as usual, nice work!

A chain slot angle is my next project for my BX, if I can ever get to it......

 

[chim]

.....................................If you don't mind my asking, what size material did you use for your brush forks? I may want to steal that idea as well.

I can check but I think the square tube times are about 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 x 3/16". They're coped into the angle that clips onto the cutting edge. They are heavy and were a little difficult for one guy to handle till this past Spring. The photo on the right is the original design - before adding the tabs and chains. I welded some tabs and a couple chains on the top side of the angle.

Now to mount them all I need to do is drive up to the forks with the bucket in the dumped position. Hop off and hook the two top chains into the slotted angle. Then curl the bucket and the forks self-install. Then connect the looped chain on the underside of the bucket up and around the back of the bucket to the middle slotted angle with a modified load binder pictured in a previous post. At this point the chains in front of the bucket are just along for the ride. They're just there to get the forks in place.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Could be my imagination but in picture 3, sure looks like the bucket lip is no longer straight.

 

[chim]

The bucket edge is fine. The angle has a slight camber to it. All that welding shrank/pulled the one leg of the angle. Never thought of it till it was finished. Novice welding

 

[BAP]

Nice job. Professional looking job and very neat.

 

[Ping]

Chim,
Thanks much for the brush fork info and pictures!
Regards

 

[SidecarFlip]

The bucket edge is fine. The angle has a slight camber to it. All that welding shrank/pulled the one leg of the angle. Never thought of it till it was finished. Novice welding

Just an observation on my part. Wasn't sure. Heating steel does that. does that.

 

[chim]

I can check but I think the square tube times are about 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 x 3/16". .......................

Confirmed 1-1/2 x 1-1/2. Can't verify the wall thickness because the ends are capped and ground pretty smooth. The tips are cut at a 45 (point at the top) so the bottom is kind of like a sled runner. IF I'm really careful, I can sometimes skim under brush that's on the grass without digging into the sod very much.