New backhoe bucket for the BX25D

[85Hokie]

I wanted to buy a new bucket to do trenching work with my Bx25d - so looking at bxpanded site I saw the perfect 6" bucket. In the past I have order 3 different things for them and they have always been a pleasure to work with. Their products are outstanding too.

AS it has been posted here, their wait time was...... excessive to say the least. Yes I understand covid and all of it's ramifications, but hell I am a school teacher and we have found ways to "teach" along with this virus (not overly well I will add) - but I get it. After contacting them and actually talking to a human several times I decided that spending my money day one and waiting 6-10 weeks or more was not what I wanted to do. SO I said wth - I will build my own. Now I can weld, and have before, but it is always better to get the "pro" to do it - my youngest is a certified welder as is the AG teacher.

I used my CAD package and drew up plans (yes - I cheated - I tried to copy the Bxpanded bucket) and I got some metal from the AG department next door in my shop. Plasma arc cut the two sides and I grinded it smooth - actually had to get someone else to cut and cnc the bearing holes for me - and even found on Amazon a company that had brass bushings that would fit perfectly around the standard kubota hoe pins. Total cost of metal cnc and bushings..... $28 bucks.



the parts.........



Below you can see the video of it moving..........

SO................. after completing ........... I realized I made 4 mistakes, some I caught early and one that I need help fixing!
One mistake was making sure I had enough clearance when the bucket went through the entire motion. SO I raised it up a bit (look at drawing vs bucket)
My pin clearance was spot on - if you look at how it comes back to the boom - that is almost perfect,

however - one big mistake, the $%@## bucket is really TOO long..... betcha someone noticed that...... so - IF I curl the bucket last when packing up, the bucket WILL hit the boom, of course if I curl early - there is no problem! The longer bucket has helped when digging so far. I just have to remember to curl early when packing up. That is an easy fix!


Now for the big mistake - and how I can "fix it" - I knew this going in this project but I did not think it would be the problem that it has become.

The two side pieces of the bucket are parallel to each other....... so if the soil is hard packed, it gets stuck in the bucket. First hole I did was in good old Virginia clay - took longer to get the clay out of the bucket than it did to build ! (Ok - that was a lie)

SO what to do? I am not going to refab the entire bucket - BUT could I add something that would allow the dirt to come out easily? Would a wide cutting edge help? Right now I have a bout 1/4" overhang.

Open to thoughts and suggestions.

 

[Old_Paint]

Having teeth instead of a cutting edge on the bucket will break up the soil some as you pull it out, and crumbling soil won't stick nearly as bad as solid masses like you'll get with that straight edge. Same reason that the Piranha bar improves the front bucket. Might try to just notch what you have to see if that helps, and maybe weld some small fins behind the 'teeth' that you make by notching it. I think you'll find it digs even better. I do like your design, though. That thing would work VERY well in coastal areas with sandy loam instead of clay. If the opening of the bucket was slightly wider than the back side (as most buckets are designed), that might possibly help to. Slightly less pay-load per scoop if you want to keep the 6" wide mouth (because you'd put the taper on the curved piece), but trenching is normally fairly slow work and depth sensitive anyway.

Clay is clay, no matter where you are. The stuff we have here will stick to greased teflon coated ceramic no stick shovels. I've gotten my axe stuck in the ground twice when it was wet, and had a pickaxe bounce off it when it was dry. I embellish my story, but only a little. When the stuff gets wet, it's slicker than greased monkey snot, yet will stick to your shoes, build up with pine straw and leaves, and eventually, you WILL sit/fall down and get a stick to try to remove about 20 pounds of clay from your shoes. I've had one buildup get so heavy it pulled the shoe off my foot. And that's a size 9 shoe. If you wear a bigger shoe, the proportions of the gooey stuff sticking to your shoes are typically exponential in nature. No matter how many times you slip and slide and fall down, the mass on the shoes just gets bigger and bigger.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

Hmm... the 'interferences' could have been avoided by making the bucket out of plywood first. Also easierr to cut,drill, try again...BTDT....
I made an entire 'load leveling bucket/loader' out of wood BEFORE lifting a piece of steel. Took 2-3 tries but 100% of it 'worked', unscrewed the pieces, used as templates, and a day later the entire unit was fabbed up.
Any bucket will get jammed packed with 'dirt'...even the 12" on my BX23s !

 

[Lil Foot]

Nice work!
I normally don't have problems with clay sticking in the bucket, (10" wide) but while digging on a neighbor's property, I hit clay and spent longer emptying the bucket than filling it. We fought it for part of a day, then that night we pressure washed the bucket clean & let it dry overnight. The next day I took some out-of-date Pam cooking spray & spayed the crap out of the bucket. Sticking was reduced by about 80%; not perfect, but way better. We re-applied several times during the day. Used 2 partial cans in maybe 6 hours of digging.
Pic shows 10" & 14" buckets:

 

[85Hokie]

Having teeth instead of a cutting edge on the bucket will break up the soil some as you pull it out, and crumbling soil won't stick nearly as bad as solid masses like you'll get with that straight edge. Same reason that the Piranha bar improves the front bucket. Might try to just notch what you have to see if that helps, and maybe weld some small fins behind the 'teeth' that you make by notching it. I think you'll find it digs even better. I do like your design, though. That thing would work VERY well in coastal areas with sandy loam instead of clay. If the opening of the bucket was slightly wider than the back side (as most buckets are designed), that might possibly help to. Slightly less pay-load per scoop if you want to keep the 6" wide mouth (because you'd put the taper on the curved piece), but trenching is normally fairly slow work and depth sensitive anyway.

Clay is clay, no matter where you are. The stuff we have here will stick to greased teflon coated ceramic no stick shovels. I've gotten my axe stuck in the ground twice when it was wet, and had a pickaxe bounce off it when it was dry. I embellish my story, but only a little. When the stuff gets wet, it's slicker than greased monkey snot, yet will stick to your shoes, build up with pine straw and leaves, and eventually, you WILL sit/fall down and get a stick to try to remove about 20 pounds of clay from your shoes. I've had one buildup get so heavy it pulled the shoe off my foot. And that's a size 9 shoe. If you wear a bigger shoe, the proportions of the gooey stuff sticking to your shoes are typically exponential in nature. No matter how many times you slip and slide and fall down, the mass on the shoes just gets bigger and bigger.

I like the teeth part - that will be next and can be an easy fix......

this is the part I like the best :

"will stick to greased teflon coated ceramic"

 

[Old_Paint]

I like the teeth part - that will be next and can be an easy fix......

this is the part I like the best :

"will stick to greased teflon coated ceramic"

That wasnt' the exaggeration.

 

[Henro]

Wow! A bucket that narrow would be a nightmare for me where I live. I am in the process of buying a mini ex with a 12 inch bucket, and that worries me...

It is all about local soil conditions I guess...

 

[Old_Paint]

I'm kinda eyeballing that nifty looking claw thing (Talon, I think it's called?) on BXpanded. Most of what I want to do for digging is going to be stump removal. Between that "Talon", a thumb, and a 12" bucket, I should get pretty good at gettin' used-to-be-trees outta my way. Grinding is OK if you want to put the stump 4 inches or so below surface, plant grass, then MOVE, but when the rest of it rots out, gonna be a big sink-hole. Got 'em all over my yard, some of which may swallow the whole LX2610. Between "abandoned" stumps, a disused septic system, and other buried treasures of which I have no foggy idea of the location, I've got some interesting times ahead.

Nope, not called Talon, called Ripper. Now if they'd just made the teeth on that thing a little sharper ......

 

[Old_Paint]

Here's what I'm referring to .....

Looks like the blade on this one can be flipped over for smooth edge, but it might just be toothed on both edges. Dunno.

 

[85Hokie]

Here's what I'm referring to .....

View attachment 52041

Looks like the blade on this one can be flipped over for smooth edge, but it might just be toothed on both edges. Dunno.

That is where I am headed!

 

[NHSleddog]

If you drill a couple air holes in the back of the bucket, they will aid in material release. We did a job years ago in the Boston Harbor and the glowing green clay would not release until we added air holes.

 

[Henro]

If you drill a couple air holes in the back of the bucket, they will aid in material release. We did a job years ago in the Boston Harbor and the glowing green clay would not release until we added air holes.

How many holes and what diameter?

Was that clay really wet? The stuff I have problems with is more like modeling clay. Sticks to the sides AND back. Not sure holes in the back would help...

 

[NHSleddog]

On the excavator (1-1/4yrd bucket) I think there were 3 holes a couple inches in diameter. You could hear it "whoosh" out of the bucket as soon as we added them. It was wet to dry clay. It looked/smelled like toxic green sludge.

 

[Lil Foot]

What we had was no where near that bad- pretty dry, but seemed to stick to the sides of the bucket.

 

[Yooper]

Nicely done! I don’t think your mistake is too bad, though. I’ve built things that had to get a total do over after the sea trials.

 

[NHSleddog]

I worked in my fathers shop for years and we had completely different approaches to prototype work.

He would sit in his office for a week "engineering" it and the come out and fab up his design. This sometimes worked, sometimes not. Real world is always different.

I would walk over to the machine with a pile of cardboard a sharpie/knife/tape and then "fab" in place.

I was always faster to the complete solution. Not always the best or most documented but the fastest for sure.

When 3D CAD/CAM took over, I was moved into the office for the design work.