difference between Track hoe and excavator

Cliff_Johns · Sep 28, 2006

What is the difference between a Track hoe and an excavator? Are they local terms for the same thing?

Cliff

ScottAR · Sep 29, 2006

Nothing.
Yes.

BTDT · Sep 29, 2006

An excavator can be a regular rubber tired backhoe, a trackhoe, which is also an excavator, is as the name implies, has tracks like a dozer. A shovel is also an excavator, but I don't want to go there.

LBrown59 · Sep 29, 2006

BTDT said:
An excavator can be a regular rubber tired backhoe, a trackhoe, which is also an excavator, is as the name implies, has tracks like a dozer. A shovel is also an excavator, but I don't want to go there.

A shovel is something I don't want to get a handle on ~ or should i say I don't want to get on the handle.

RobJ · Sep 29, 2006

I think technically some of the first excavators sort of scraped up the hill. Where as the hoe is a pulling digging. So you might say the excavator has the bucket on reverse to a hoe. I think all the manufactors use the term excavator, but the field term is track hoe.

Again just guessing the excavator came first in the form of the old mining steam shovels. In the early days a drag line was used as a pulling digger. All 3 still in use today.

I guess they like the work hoe...a track or back hoe with a hammer on it is called a hammer hoe.

At least by the construction crews.

Birdhunter1 · Sep 29, 2006

I use to see a machine built like a backhoe on crawler tracks, loader in front and hoe in the rear. I think this was what was called a trackhoe then the excavator pivots on teh tracks where as the trackhoe did not.

It almost seems like "what is the difference between a kleenex and a tissue?"

tractorbob · Sep 29, 2006

A trackhoe is a track loader with a backhoe on the rear. Operates very much like a backhoe only can traverse steep hills etc. The boom only swings left and right 90 degrees like a backhoe. An excavator is on tracks and has a house that swings plus a boom that swings as well and no bucket on the front. You don't see too many trackhoes anymore but a lot of excavators.

Cliff_Johns · Oct 2, 2006

Thanks guys.
Cliff

N80 · Oct 12, 2006

My dad still calls them all steam shovels! He's about 70 so I don't think he ever saw an actual steam shovel other than Mike Mulligan's.

RobJ · Oct 12, 2006

N80 said:
My dad still calls them all steam shovels! He's about 70 so I don't think he ever saw an actual steam shovel other than Mike Mulligan's.

Mike Mulligan, that brings back some childhood memories.!!

CsaUpstateNY · Aug 14, 2014

Excavators the bucket points (and digs) towards the cab whereas a shovel's bucket points (and digs) away from the cab.
Large shovels are still used in open pit mining, they operate on the mine floor where the forces when scooping upwards above the floor are offset by the tracks.
Excavator conversely are designed to dig below the floor of the machine where the forces are properly resisted by the tracks as well.

Bob Rooks · Aug 14, 2014

tractorbob said:
A trackhoe is a track loader with a backhoe on the rear. Operates very much like a backhoe only can traverse steep hills etc. The boom only swings left and right 90 degrees like a backhoe. An excavator is on tracks and has a house that swings plus a boom that swings as well and no bucket on the front. You don't see too many trackhoes anymore but a lot of excavators.

Nailed it! :thumbsup: But some people will still call them whatever they want to, whether they are correct or not. Same thing with track loaders and tracked skid steer machines.

paulharvey · Aug 14, 2014

Track hoe is a tracked machine with a hoe, typically no loader bucket, but some times a push blade on 12 ton and smaller models. Back hoe term can be used for a rubber tired hoe/tlb/combination as well as for a track hoe; the "back" hoe term refers to the way it digs, back towards the machine. Excavator is typically used as a term for a track hoe, but isn't limited to a specific type. There are some odd machines out there, such as a crawler type tracked dozer with a rear mounted hoe, JCB I believe made/makes an articulated front end loader with a hoe. There are "Gradalls" that could technically be called an excavator or even a back hoe, but would normally be called a gradall. There are also "spyder" excavators, heck I think there was a jeep with a hoe at one time.

Power shovels dig up and away from the machine, typically used in a pit, digging at the walls as in a mine.

Xfaxman · Aug 18, 2014

paulharvey said:
Track hoe is a tracked machine with a hoe, typically no loader bucket, but some times a push blade on 12 ton and smaller models. Back hoe term can be used for a rubber tired hoe/tlb/combination as well as for a track hoe; the "back" hoe term refers to the way it digs, back towards the machine. Excavator is typically used as a term for a track hoe, but isn't limited to a specific type. There are some odd machines out there, such as a crawler type tracked dozer with a rear mounted hoe, JCB I believe made/makes an articulated front end loader with a hoe. There are "Gradalls" that could technically be called an excavator or even a back hoe, but would normally be called a gradall. There are also "spyder" excavators, heck I think there was a jeep with a hoe at one time.

Power shovels dig up and away from the machine, typically used in a pit, digging at the walls as in a mine.

Yep, there was.