What size snow bucket - DS4510HS

[gladehound]

I believe the poster is referring to the "cage" around your tractor as pictured in your avatar. It is nice. Did you make this yourself?

I liked that cage. It was great in the woods because stuff would just ride up the two front rails and over the top. The small size of the tractor helped. On the flip side, that tractors lift limitations were a negative in the woods when moving trees around. It was made by Precission Chassis in Limerick PA. They typically build frames and cages for drag race cars.

I cut that cage appart and my cousin's metal shop welded it up to fit the DS4510HS. I couldn't run the main frame over the hood because it is a very wide tilt up hood compared the the LB1914 which was all panels that come off individually. Here's a picture with the same cage on the DS4510HS.

 

[nybirdman]

I run a coverted 8ft.Curtis on the FEL with a similar sized(L4240 Kubota) and a seven ft. rear blade with no problems.R1 tires loaded,no chains.

 

[gladehound]

Let's get this back on topic... There are hundreds of threads talking about the best ways to move snow and I realize buckets are at the bottom of the list (just above shovel). I've used rear blades, converted truck plows and buckets (and shovels!). I have not used a blower. But my question is about buckets (this doesn't mean I won't convert the 9 foot plow, that I won't use my rear blade or try my cousins 6 foot blower).

The only recommendation about bucket size has been to not exceed 7 foot width because it will stress the loader arms too much if pressure is applied to the outer edge. That is a very valid concern and based on comments from other threads where people have bent loader arms with a snow pusher (similar concept) I agree, I should stay under 7 foot. In fact 78" would nicely cover my wheels with wiggle room and be wide enough for any of the vehicles at the 8 homes I plow to get in and out (but 84" would be a little better). 78" would probably also be a better option for manuverability.

A point that may have been missed here is that I'm looking for a much deeper / higher bucket, not just wider. My current bucket is 9 cu foot struck capacity and I'd like to have something around 30 cu foot for moving light materials. I didn't mention it before but I'd have other uses for the larger bucket (like moving fire wood) but the plow would sit most the time.

Finally, I don't think a plow will be good for starting at the road and going towards a house with no place to put the snow near the house. Snow has to be blown out of some of the turn arounds or lifted out with a bucket. While I do believe a power v-plow on the loader arms and blower on the back is the best set up - that is big money and doesn't help move firewood.

So right now the question is on buckets. I've narrowed it down to either a 78" or 84" bucket, probably the Tomahawk due to price, weight and the fact that it has the lowest volume of the three (so that it doesn't kill my roll back force as much) while still being much much more volume than the standard bucket. 84" probably better for snow, 78" probably better for my other uses (acually 72" probably best form my other uses but not big enough for snow). Note that a 72" Tomahawk snow bucket still has 2.5X the capacity of my standard 66" bucket so these are much higher volume buckets that I am considering.

 

[Tractor Tom]

Hey Glade, I think you'll be fine with either the 84 or the 78 inch bucket. I'm thinking a load would have to be very heavy and completely on one side to bend the loader frame. Even then I'm not sure it would?? I'm not an engineer, that's just my gut feel from 30 + years of running small tractors.

I will put in a plug for a front blade. Until this year I have Always used the bucket and Blower to move snow. I put a blade on the front this year and all I can say is why did it take me so long to figure this out!! I doubt I'll even put the Bucket on this year at all. Yes the blade is out front a long way...But I get NO front push at all, even in a foot of heavy wet snow.

 

[aeblank]

To be fair, loaders have snow or coal buckets fairly frequently. If you did a proportional weight comparison of dirt vs snow, I'm sure a much much larger bucket is fine. Not sure what multiplier to put on it for torque. I largely think that is a vastly over-stated concern (bending loader arms), though. While I'm sure it happens, I've never known of someone doing it.

 

[gladehound]

I think the risk of bending loader arms come into play if are moving and accidentally hit something that wont move with the corner of the bucket (rock, tree, frozen snow bank etc). I agree that it seems highly unlikely just lifting something.

Back in my youth I remember a good 3 ft heave wet snow that none of the state trucks could get through. They used front end loaders with buckets to break the roads open. The loaders weren't scooping and dumping. They just put the bucket down, drove straight and let the extra roll off the sides. The plow trucks followed to widen the path. Maybe this is unrealistic with a 45hp tractor.

 

[DK35vince]

Back in my youth I remember a good 3 ft heave wet snow that none of the state trucks could get through. They used front end loaders with buckets to break the roads open. The loaders weren't scooping and dumping. They just put the bucket down, drove straight and let the extra roll off the sides. The plow trucks followed to widen the path. Maybe this is unrealistic with a 45hp tractor.

I don't think its unrealistic. You should have plenty of tractor for that.
You would likely need to dump the bucket on occasion, but you could probably go pretty far between dumps depending on snow depth..

 

[arrow]

I actually went through this thought process myself. Larger bucket or snow pusher. Have the rear blade already. The mere fact that you mention to have to scoop out snow near the house and move it elsewhere gives the most rationale for a bucket as a snow buckets's main purpose and advantage in my mind, is to move snow from one place to another. Another advantage is that in deeper snows, a snow bucket mitigates the snow coming over the top of the smaller regular dirt bucket. It can be left on all winter long for wood gathering. A smaller bucket might prove more maneuverable but what needs to be considered is how close to "things" will you need to work the bucket. At times it's nice to not have to cozy up the tractor to things you do not care to hit because the bucket is wide enough to sort of "squirrel" in there. What you need to "finesse" around I think would weigh more in a consideration for bucket width size rather than snow movement.

 

[jacques54]

This is what I have done for snow removal. I take the snow in front of the house to the sea shore in the back. I could not make it bigger when fill with wet snow it is close to tip even with the snow-blower in the back.

J

Jacques

 

[skyhook]

Put the 7 footer on, I don't see a problem for a bigger bucket on your 45 hp tractor.
True, if you hit something with the side of it, "it may" damage something (most likely not),
but the same is also true for a smaller bucket.
So to answer your question, if you can get a bigger bucket, go for it. IMO
Your tractor will let you know if it's overweight.