Grading and Excavation Contractor | Versatile Attachments

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	Photo: Bobcat

Today’s selection of compact equipment attachments offers more ways than ever to work smarter rather than harder.

By Greg Northcutt

For the past 12 years, contractor Leo Antes has been using his skid-steer loader with a laser-equipped grader attachment to save time, labor, and money in preparing bases for large concrete floors in warehouses, big-box retail stores, and other commercial sites. In the process, the increased grading accuracy of this equipment has reduced concrete waste by as much as 80% or more compared with using a bucket on his skid-steer loader, grading stakes, and a “bunch of bodies with shovels” to level the bases. “Saving as little as a quarter-inch thickness of concrete on a 100,000-square-foot floor represents a lot of money,” says the owner of Antes Concrete Inc. in Olathe, KS. This attachment, along with a dozen or so others—from trenchers and brush cutters to grapple buckets and snow blades—has enabled him to expand his construction business and make more money.

“I believe in having the right equipment,” Antes says. “Without skid-steer loaders and our various attachments, we wouldn’t be able to do nearly as much work as we do. Our attachments have enabled us to be very diversified. If one facet of our business slows down, we can pick something else up. It’s easy for me to justify the cost of buying or renting the attachments I need.”

Another contractor who has profited from equipping his compact equipment with a wide range of attachments is Bob Aldous of Yelm, WA. Doing business as Bobcat Bob Inc., his fleet includes two skid-steer loaders, a compact track loader, a compact excavator, and more than a dozen attachments.

“These attachments save me quite a bit of time and have contributed to the growth of my business,” he says. “They enable me to pick up new and different jobs because customers know I can do the work. I seldom go to a job site without several different attachments.”

Brad Elliott, who operates skid-steer and compact track loaders for Larry Brown Excavating in Liberty, MO, also appreciates the value of having a wide range of attachments for doing more work in less time with less effort.

“Attachments make skid-steer loaders so much more versatile,” he says. “With the right attachment we can do just about any job we have. The tighter the work site, the more valuable they are.”

The ability of a skid-steer or compact loader to handle a variety of tasks can also eliminate the need for a single- or limited-purpose machine, Elliott adds.

“We run six of these loaders, and because of our different attachments, we usually keep them and their operators busy all day long,” he says.


	Handy Tools for a Multitasker

Growing Demand
No doubt about it. Having the right tool for the job can turn a grading and excavating contractor into a master of many tasks. Such added versatility can boost productivity, cut labor costs, and expand services to make more money. No segment of the market illustrates that better than compact equipment, such as skid-steer and compact track loaders and compact excavators. The demand for attachments to mount on these machines has continued to increase over the past decade or more.

“Ten to 15 years ago, the attachment market for compact equipment was pretty small,” says Tom Banner, manager of product sales training for Case Construction Equipment. “It’s certainly grown a lot since then.”

“The ability to get more work out of one machine by using different attachments continues to appeal to contractors,” adds Tom Connor, excavator product specialist with Bobcat Co. Depending on the make and the model of skid-steer or compact track loader, you can equip these machines with attachments ranging from dozer blades, post drives, and stump grinders to angle brooms, concrete pumps, and snow blowers. Even such a basic attachment as a bucket comes in an assortment of versions, including tooth buckets, side-discharge buckets, high-capacity light-material buckets, grapple buckets, and combination buckets that can be used as a standard bucket for digging, carrying, and dumping, as a grapple for handling bulky materials, and as a blade for dozing and leveling.

That appeal of compact-equipment attachments isn’t limited to owners of skid-steer and compact track loaders. “The Swiss Army knife mentality associated with compact loaders has spilled over to the compact-excavator market,” explains Keith Rohrbacker, construction equipment product manager for Kubota Tractor Corp. “Manufacturers have responded by producing a variety of attachments for these machines.”

In fact, reports Connor, the selection of attachments for compact excavators has allowed some contractors to replace skid-steer loaders. “Some landscape contractors are using only a compact excavator to complete an entire landscaping project—from clearing trees using a hydraulic thumb and grapple and shaping the site with a grading bucket to digging tree planting holes with an auger and placing timbers and boulders using the hydraulic thumb and grapple again,” he says.


	Attachment Payoffs Range From Precision Grading to Snow Removal

Multiple Choices
The range of attachments available for compact construction equipment is astonishing. For example, attachment distributor CE Attachments counts more than 100 different categories of these tools in its catalog. “There seems to be no end to what inventors can come up with,” says Sarah Falkavage, sales and marketing specialist for CE Attachments. “If an idea for an attachment is good, there’s probably a market for that.” Reflecting the power of an idea, some of the more recent additions to the company’s list of attachments are those for filling sandbags, cleaning culverts, and pulling posts and stumps out of the ground.

Among the variety of products available from OEMs and attachment manufacturers are hydraulic breakers, box blades, grading buckets, excavating rakes, rotating grapples, and trenchers.

The choices of attachments for compact equipment aren’t just those that mount on the lift arms of a skid-steer loader or at the end of the dipper stick of a compact excavator. Kubota, for instance, offers Stanley hand-held hydraulic tools, such as a concrete saw, a chainsaw, and an impact wrench, for its compact excavators. The tools are operated by the auxiliary hydraulic circuit of the machines.

“Contractors are using compact excavators as a power supply for these small tools,” says Rohrbacker. “The reach, depth, and maneuverability of a compact excavator make them ideal for operating and positioning these attachments. You can use the machine with hand tools, like tree shears to trim branches from trees or a hydraulic pump placed in the bottom of a pit to remove water. Contractors are really inventive in finding ways of using compact-excavator attachments to solve problems.”

Nifty Accessories
In addition to expanding the variety of compact-equipment attachments they make for saving time and effort, manufacturers have also made them easier and more convenient to use.

One of the most important advances in this area has been the development of the mechanical quick-attach feature for both compact loaders and excavators. At one time, buckets and other attachments were secured to the arms of a skid-steer loader using bolts or pins. In addition to removing these fasteners, users usually had to wrestle with the attachment to line up the holes before reinserting the bolts or pins.

This approach was replaced with a more simple, quick-attach system. Mounting an attachment is a matter of aligning the quick-attach frame on the loader with a flange on the attachment. Pushing a lever on the right and left side of the attachment frame operates a spring-loaded mechanism that secures the attachment to the frame.

A similar system is used to mount attachments to the end of the dipper on compact excavators. In this case, the attachment is curled to allow pins on the quick-attach frame to engage ears on the attachment and secure it. A retaining pin is then inserted for added safety. Most of the time and effort spent hooking up the original pin-on attachments involved lining up the pin holes, notes Banner with Case. “It usually required one person on the ground with a hammer and drift pin to align the holes and another in the cab operating the machine,” he says.

More recently, manufacturers have improved on the mechanical quick-attach by offering units that can be operated hydraulically from the operator’s seat. Mounting and dismounting the attachment is as simple as pushing a switch in the cab. (Any auxiliary hydraulic hoses used to operate a hydraulic-driven attachment must still be connected and disconnected manually.)

Elliott has this feature on his compact track loaders. “I love it,” he says. “It saves so much time.”

It’s also handy for keeping the attachment latches clean in winter. “In cold weather, it’s easy to remove the bucket at night and clean out any mud before it freezes to keep the mechanism working freely. That way I can change to different attachments in the morning if I want.” Aldous has the same feature on his skid-steer and compact track loaders and a similar hydraulic quick-attach on his compact excavator.

“I just push a button to engage and disengage the attachment pins on the excavator,” he says. “I can sit in the cab and change attachments all day. The only time I have to get out of the cab is to connect hoses on the hydraulic breaker or plate compactor.”

Photo: Bobcat

This Bobcat 430 Zero House Swing Excavator is equipped with a Hydra-Tilt swing accessory and Bobcat grading bucket.

Easier Hydraulic Control
Operation of such hydraulic-driven attachments as a hydraulic breaker or plate compactor requires auxiliary hydraulics. Several compact-excavator manufacturers have replaced the conventional foot pedal used to switch the auxiliary hydraulic flow on and off with much-easier-to-operate controls on the joysticks.

The foot pedal must be depressed to activate the auxiliary hydraulics for full-flow operation and held in this position continuously while operating hydraulic-driven attachments. Releasing the pedal stops the hydraulic flow completely. By contrast, some excavators use a finger-controlled trigger or bang/bang switch on the joystick to operate the auxiliary hydraulics. Pulling the trigger turns auxiliary hydraulic flow fully on, and it stays on until the trigger is pulled a second time to shut off the flow.

Other excavators use a thumb-controlled paddle switch on the joystick that not only turns the auxiliary hydraulics on and off but also allows the operator to adjust the rate of flow for more precise control of some attachment. For example, it allows an operator to slowly squeeze a hydraulic thumb or grapple around an object or slowly release the grip for greater accuracy and control when placing rocks, logs, and other bulky objects.


	Attachments Keep Excavating Crew Versatile and Productive

More Twists
Manufacturers have also made it easier to place attachments in the best working position. The Tilt-Tach for skid-steer and compact track loaders provides an interface between the quick-attach and the attachment. This unit allows the operators to hydraulically rotate the right and left side of an attachment 15 degrees up and down using a control in the cab. It’s useful for keeping a load level on uneven terrain and for more flexibility when digging and grading.

Elliott uses the Tilt-Tach with a tooth bucket for various types of work. One is to cut swales at the angle he wants. Another is to cut into a slope in tight places, such as close to a sidewalk. “I can run the loader right next to the sidewalk without having to ride on the sidewalk and risk cracking it,” he says.

The Tilt-Tach is also convenient when excavating for a drainage pipe. “Instead of cutting out the whole width of my 80-inch bucket, I can tilt one side down and cut only about an 18-inch-wide area for the pipe,” he says. “I don’t have to move nearly as much material, and it makes backfilling go a lot faster. I can run alongside a ditch or a sidewalk and lower one side of the bucket so the material comes out only on that side.

“When we first got it, I thought it would be handy in tight spots. But now I use it on many different jobs. On some it saves at least an hour a day.”

Two other devices make it easy to position compact-excavator attachments. The Hydra-Tilt swing accessory, which mounts between the bucket and dipper, uses a hydraulic cylinder to angle the tool 60 degrees to the right or left. This reduces the need to move the excavator when shaping slopes, cutting or cleaning drainage ditches, grading, or contouring.

The Power-Tilt swing accessory takes this concept even further, providing a 180-degree range of motion. This wristlike action moves the bucket to either side to reach around and under obstacles. It’s designed to improve productivity when working close to sewer lines, tree roots, foundations, culverts, and other objects. “You could even use it on a swimming pool excavation to shave walls to the final dimension,” says Bobcat’s Connor.

That’s just one more example of how the proper attachment can help make the grading and excavating business a little more efficient and a little more profitable.

Greg Northcutt writes on construction and business issues.

GEC - January 2008

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