Yet another bucket-mod thread

[Sfrankland]

I added shackles to my bucket but chain hooks could be done the same way. The base is 1/2" and the vertical part is 3/4". The plates bolt through the bucket and into a 3/8" plate I installed inside the bucket. The 3/8" plate inside is longer and a little wider than the top plate. Never had any issues with strength but the waste guard I added reinforces the top of the bucket some.

[hodge]

I have reviewed all the other bucket mod threads I could find, and I've decided that I am going to put hooks and a 2" hitch receiver on my bucket. I'd like to get some input on the best way to install them on my specific bucket.

Attachment 291015

The bucket is made of ... well, my caliper says 5/16", but that seems like kind of an oddball size, so I suspect it's more like 1/8" with a 1/32" coat of paint.

Attachment 291016

Here's a top view of the bucket, so you can see what I'm working with. I understand from other threads that I'm going to have to reinforce the top of the bucket. Since the top is more or less parallel with the bottom, I'm thinking it's at a fine angle, and I believe I will just weld a piece of flat stock to the top of the bucket, with the hooks and receiver tube welded to it.

Attachment 291017

What thickness of stock is recommended? I'm thinking somewhere around 1/4" to 3/8"?

I know that I need not to have the hooks outside the lift arms, but I would like to have them farther out than that, and I would really like to have them in line with the lift arms if at all possible. What about doing the reinforcing sheet like this:

Attachment 291018

Or maybe even this:

Attachment 291020

That last one concerns me a little bit, because it will involve welding over the welds that hold the bucket to the bracket. I'm not sure I want to mess with that... I don't know if that's just trepidation, or if there is any real risk there.

For the reinforcing stock, is a complete weld along the entire length recommended, or would several inches of bead spaced out over the length of the reinforcing piece do?

The bucket is only 1/8" thick, and I'm confident that I can weld on material that thin without burning through. But I usually use 3/32" electrodes. Given what these welds are going to be asked to hold, I wonder if more than one 3/32" bead is called for, or whether I would be better off to step up to 1/8". I'd much rather run a single 1/8" bead in the joint than three 3/32" beads. There's just a lot more room to screw things up with the multiple passes. Also, I'm not sure how the variable thickness of the metals to be joined is going to affect things. In the past, when I have played with that, I have had a little trouble getting the heat to go where I want it to. The thinner piece gets hot faster than the thicker piece. Any advice would be appreciated.

I realize that some of these welding questions may start to put this project in the category of, "If you have to ask, you shouldn't be doing it," but given the expected loads that will be put on the welds, my gut is that this is within my capabilities. The welds are easy lap joints in the flat position. The loader has about a 1000 lb capacity, so that's the MOST that they will be asked to carry. Worst case scenario is that the whole thing breaks away and the trailer that I'm moving goes down a hill--but the trailer has, what, 200 lbs tongue weight empty? I think I'm capable of pulling this off, even at my level of experience, but if y'all disagree, I'll certainly take that into consideration.

If your caliper reads 5/16, that is 1/16th more than 1/4"- not 1/8" more than 1/8th. Your bucket is probably made of 5/16" material, unless you misread the caliper and it was 3/16ths. That is pretty substantial. I agree with some of the others- you can certainly overbuild you hook mounts, which is your dollar and your business. I don't think it is necessary, though.
I welded hooks on the buckets of my Bobcat skidsteer and my dads NH3930. The right thickness and good welds have been more than sufficient to move anything that either one of them would handle. Good preparation, good welds, and using both hooks so that loads are evenly displaced are key.

You could also buy some Ken's Hooks and install those, and using backing plates if you are concerned about strength. You wouldn't have to weld or paint the bucket.

[Gary Fowler]

I don't own a trailer; but having a receiver on my bucket came in handy as the picture shows.

Attachment 291273

Lifting a large amount of weight from the center as depicted in this photo is about the best way I know to damage the bucket. This could have been done just as easy with chain to each bucket hook. One 15-20 foot chain could have been ran across the bucket with the hooks dangling to fasten to the lifting device and the other end fastened in the bucket hooks thus loading the tractor at the pivot points and not in the center of the bucket. Even though the bucket apparently withstood the weight, that is not good practice. If the bucket bent, it could have been catastrophic to the lift.

[joshuabardwell]

If your caliper reads 5/16, that is 1/16th more than 1/4"- not 1/8" more than 1/8th. Your bucket is probably made of 5/16" material, unless you misread the caliper and it was 3/16ths. That is pretty substantial. I agree with some of the others- you can certainly overbuild you hook mounts, which is your dollar and your business. I don't think it is necessary, though.

Dadgumit. No matter how much I work with fractional SI units, I still make dumb mistakes like that. I would blame it on the fractions, but I recently mis-remembered 0.012 amps as 0.12 amps, with much wasted troubleshooting effort resulting. And that was a decimal! I will double check with the caliper to make sure I remembered correctly, but I am pretty sure the caliper read 1/16" more than 1/4", or 5/16".

Not to get too off-topic, but this is now the second time in a week that I have come to TBN with a measurement in mind and mis-remembered it as what I thought it would be vs. what it actually was. Is 37 too young to get senior-itis? This is ridiculous. Maybe I need to start taking fish oil pills or something. Or carrying around a little note-pad to actually write stuff down. Hey! I just figured out why old guys always carry around little notepads!

Not that I know much about fabrication, but I tend to agree that if the bucket is made of 5/16" material then additional reinforcing isn't necessary. It's common to reinforce 1/8" buckets with 1/4" plate, for a total thickness of 3/8". 5/16" is just shy of that.

[hodge]

Joshua, maybe you have senioritis, but it is more likely that you have many full plates in front of you. That's my case, and I'm sticking with that story.

[joshuabardwell]

Lifting a large amount of weight from the center as depicted in this photo is about the best way I know to damage the bucket. This could have been done just as easy with chain to each bucket hook. One 15-20 foot chain could have been ran across the bucket with the hooks dangling to fasten to the lifting device and the other end fastened in the bucket hooks thus loading the tractor at the pivot points and not in the center of the bucket. Even though the bucket apparently withstood the weight, that is not good practice. If the bucket bent, it could have been catastrophic to the lift.

The cherry on top is the mount for the clevis sticking out, adding leverage unnecessarily.

[mjncad]

Lifting a large amount of weight from the center as depicted in this photo is about the best way I know to damage the bucket. This could have been done just as easy with chain to each bucket hook. One 15-20 foot chain could have been ran across the bucket with the hooks dangling to fasten to the lifting device and the other end fastened in the bucket hooks thus loading the tractor at the pivot points and not in the center of the bucket. Even though the bucket apparently withstood the weight, that is not good practice. If the bucket bent, it could have been catastrophic to the lift.

The cherry on top is the mount for the clevis sticking out, adding leverage unnecessarily.

Gents:

You both raise valid concerns, and I tested this out by lifting a slab just a couple of inches off the wood cribbing to make sure the bucket, etc would withstand the bending force before raising the slab higher for dramatic effect. The square tube steel in the receiver is 3/16" thick and was kept as short as possible to minimize unnecessary leverage on the bucket. For the project I was doing with these slabs; sometimes I used the extension sticking out the front of the receiver as shown in the picture, sometimes out the back, and sometimes I just ran the chain through the receiver. How I used the receiver was determined by how the tractor could be positioned in a tight space to place the slabs.

Using a center point with the chain formed a triangle with two sides of the triangle being the chain and the last side being the slab lets the slab's weight be used to get a tight grip on the slab. This concept is similar to 55-gallon drum and slab lifters made of solid arms of steel that use the item to be lifted's weight to increase the amount of grip on the item. Running a chain through my hooks would have formed a rectangle, and I wouldn't have gotten a secure grip on the slab. Now it's possible with a sufficient length of chain that it could have been run through the bucket hooks in such a way as to have formed an "X" with the chain to have achieved the same type of mechanism to take advantage of the slab's weight to increase grip.

Do I claim that this is the best and safest rigging setup? No, not in the least, and I understood the risks involved and deemed them to be acceptable for a one-time only project. I just wanted to illustrate that a receiver on a bucket can be used for more things than just moving trailers.

[joshuabardwell]

Gents:
Do I claim that this is the best and safest rigging setup? No, not in the least, and I understood the risks involved and deemed them to be acceptable for a one-time only project. I just wanted to illustrate that a receiver on a bucket can be used for more things than just moving trailers.

Well, when you put it that way...

[joshuabardwell]

If your caliper reads 5/16, that is 1/16th more than 1/4"- not 1/8" more than 1/8th.

I just went and re-measured. I was right when I said 1/16" more than 1/8". I was wrong when I said 5/16". It's 3/16". Moral of the story: I stink at fractions.

[joshuabardwell]

If your caliper reads 5/16, that is 1/16th more than 1/4"- not 1/8" more than 1/8th.

I just went and re-measured. I was right when I said 1/16" more than 1/8". I was wrong when I said 5/16". It's 3/16". Moral of the story: I stink at fractions. Looks like I'll be reinforcing the bucket.

(PS: I also stink at decimals. And numbers.)