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.

View 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.

View 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.

View 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:

View attachment 291018

Or maybe even this:

View 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.

View 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... :thumbsup:

 

[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.)

 

[pat32rf]

OK, so there are times when you want to lift a wide heavy weight and it is better to have two lift lines going straight down to it. This will minimize the strain on the lines as well. There are times when you only want to lift 150lb but because of obsticles in the way, you must lift from the very edge of your bucket, one side or the other. There are also times when you want to carry a load such as a fridge and run a strap to each corner of your bucket.

I find however that most of my lifting is light duty, such as pulling posts, carrying concrete anchor blocks, moving motors or setting things on a tailgate. This I can do best with one center hook. It also works fine for small pulling jobs, ATV, riding lawnmowers etc. This is why my bucket has 3 lifting/pulling points.
I also have a 4' lifting boom that goes on my fork frame that gets used for "serious" lifting. I can lift light loads away out front or heavy loads from the frame itself. It has a 2" receiver built into the end because it IS a LOT easier to fit a trailer into a tiny space when hooked to the front of your tractor (or truck).

A QD bucket is about the handiest thing I've ever had on a tractor. The more I can use the FEL the better, so thats where a lot of my custom work gets done.

 

[joshuabardwell]

Look up under the lip of your bucket and see if there is a piece of rectangular tubing welded in under the lip. If it already has this tubing under the lip, then no further reinforcing would be needed.

I've got the hooks and the receiver tube now. Thanks to Ken at Ken's Bolt on Grab Hooks (a TBN member!) for setting me up with the hooks. He sells weld-on hooks too!

Only thing left is to decide how to reinforce it. Gary, I like your idea for two reasons: it maintains the original look of the bucket (vanity!), and it involves less steel (cheaper, and adds less weight). I'm contemplating my options. Instead of rectangular tubing, would it be more or less the same to just add a piece of C-channel? And if I understand correctly, you're suggesting that I could weld it to the top of the bucket, flush with the front, as opposed to trying to box in the lip. Is that right?

What size/thickness channel or tubing would you use? Say, 1000 lbs max at the center of about a 4' span between the lift arms.

It seems that the goal of the reinforcement is to prevent the top of the bucket from buckling, as opposed to reinforcing the metal to which the hooks and receiver tube are welded, so as to prevent them from tearing out or something like that. Is that right?

 

[Gary Fowler]

I've got the hooks and the receiver tube now. Thanks to Ken at Ken's Bolt on Grab Hooks (a TBN member!) for setting me up with the hooks. He sells weld-on hooks too!

Only thing left is to decide how to reinforce it. Gary, I like your idea for two reasons: it maintains the original look of the bucket (vanity!), and it involves less steel (cheaper, and adds less weight). I'm contemplating my options. Instead of rectangular tubing, would it be more or less the same to just add a piece of C-channel? And if I understand correctly, you're suggesting that I could weld it to the top of the bucket, flush with the front, as opposed to trying to box in the lip. Is that right?

What size/thickness channel or tubing would you use? Say, 1000 lbs max at the center of about a 4' span between the lift arms.

It seems that the goal of the reinforcement is to prevent the top of the bucket from buckling, as opposed to reinforcing the metal to which the hooks and receiver tube are welded, so as to prevent them from tearing out or something like that. Is that right?

That is right, when properly welded, there is no way a FEL will pull the hooks loose from the metal when even the larger tractors arent going to lift more than about 3500# . Even the cheapest grade (A36 plate) has a tensile strength of 36,000 PSI and with a welded all around hook you will have at least that amount of weld (1 sq. in.) or bolted with two 5/8 or so grade 8 bolts with big backup washers will give you the same strength. I have actually put a 1/4" tack at the center of a piece of angle about 18" long and could not break the tack by making a straight pull with a 1.5 ton come-a-long. But by lifting the end up with one hand, it easily broke it off. (Tensile vs bend strength)

 

[Gary Fowler]

Channel would work, but might not be as strong as tubing with .250 or .375 wall thickness BUT for the small Bobcat, the lift capacity wont be so great that you need super strength. Put the channel in with the back of the C facing the lip on the bucket and stitch weld it all the way across on both sides of the channel. I dont think you need to weld it solid as that much heat will likely warp the bucket. I would weld the ends and then skip weld it all the way across alternating the sides of the channel. The fillet weld doesnt need to be any larger than the thickness of the thinest metal (3/16") that you are welding to. I would put one pass of 3/32" 7018 electrode by welding about 2" every 12 with the alternate side being in the middle of the other side as depicted here. - _ - _ - _

 

[joshuabardwell]

Channel would work, but might not be as strong as tubing with .250 or .375 wall thickness BUT for the small Bobcat, the lift capacity wont be so great that you need super strength.

Cool. I will see what I can source. Not being focused on getting exactly one specific thing makes it a lot easier to find stuff at the scrap-yard that will work. I ran by the hardware store this afternoon, on the way to the grocery store, but they didn't have hardly anything thicker than 3/16". Thanks for all the advice!

 

[joshuabardwell]

Took a run down to the scrap-yard today. After considering all my options and priorities, I decided to go with the flat stock on top of the bucket after all. Cosmetics aside, it'll just be a much simpler weld. The thought of flipping the bucket upside down and then having to get in there and weld inside the lip at odd angles was just not to my liking. So I picked up a piece of 3/8" flat stock and just got done cutting it to length and shape. Man, I sure do love my Diabolo metal cutting blade. Easiest, cleanest, straightest cuts I ever saw.

Should I bother cleaning and painting the bottom side of the piece of reinforcing stock?

 

[k0ua]

Took a run down to the scrap-yard today. After considering all my options and priorities, I decided to go with the flat stock on top of the bucket after all. Cosmetics aside, it'll just be a much simpler weld. The thought of flipping the bucket upside down and then having to get in there and weld inside the lip at odd angles was just not to my liking. So I picked up a piece of 3/8" flat stock and just got done cutting it to length and shape. Man, I sure do love my Diabolo metal cutting blade. Easiest, cleanest, straightest cuts I ever saw.

Should I bother cleaning and painting the bottom side of the piece of reinforcing stock?

I didn't on mine, I figured the welding would burn the paint anyway.

James K0UA

 

[texasjohn]

All this discussion of bucket mods and no mention of a toothbar??? If nothing else, it increases your bucket capacity, gives you places to hang chain from, reinforces the lip, and makes carrying odd shaped things easier in conjunction with the hooks on top. Oh, yes, mighty nice when digging into hard material or popping rocks/roots out of the ground, too.:thumbsup:

 

[joshuabardwell]

I got the plate and the hooks welded on tonight. No pics because it's dark, but I'll get you some tomorrow. Here are some thoughts...

I really came to appreciate 6011 on this project. There have been times I thought that 7018 would always be my go-to rod because it is so easy to run. My first few beads were just absolute garbage, though! I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. So I switched to 7014. Garbage! Porosity and bird-poop. I realized that part of the problem was that I hadn't cleaned the paint back far enough off the bucket, and it was getting involved in the weld. Come to think of it, I could kind of smell it too--same smell as I picked up when I was grinding off the paint. So I switched to 6011 and, while the welds aren't as smooth as 7018 and have some undercutting (sometimes a LOT of undercutting), they are solid and clean. I thought about turning down the heat to reduce the undercutting, but I figured on this job, I cared more about penetration than pretty welds. The first time I went over one of the 7018 welds with 6011, some sparks shot out of the weld, which I am guessing was paint or slag burning out. Just goes to show that welding coupons and welding in the real world are a lot different.

The bottom edge of the weld-on hooks was beveled, and that gave me no end of trouble. I couldn't see the puddle at all when the tip of the rod was stuck deep into the bevel, so I did the first pass mostly by feel. It was junk. I went over those passes several times to build it out, but I really felt like I was walking a line between burning out the hook and building up the weld. As a workaround, I did one of the hooks using vertical up. I'm not sure why, but it seemed to make it easier to see what I was doing. The result was not entirely garbage, so I was a little proud of that.

One of the nice things about welding on a FEL bucket is that you can have it at any height and orientation you like. No need to weld out of position if you don't want to!

At the beginning, I clamped the ground clamp to the bucket's cutting edge, in a place where the paint had been scraped off. But the whole thing was really acting like I was having poor ground--having to turn the amperage higher than I should, and so forth. The flat stock was already tacked into position, and it was too wide for the ground clamp to get a bite on it. I wished that, before I had tacked it into place, I had tacked on a small rib of scrap to clamp the ground clamp to. That way I would be assured of a good ground. I went ahead and welded on one of the hooks and used it as a clamp location going forward.

I'm kind of disappointed in a lot of the welds because I have done MUCH better when welding coupons, but at the end of the day, I'm still proud that I got the job done, and I feel pretty confident it's going to hold. I'm really tempted to try grinding down the welds and going back over them to make them look prettier, but I don't think I will. For one thing, when I do that, I usually end up making more of a mess than I started with. For another thing, maybe I can look at this bucket some day when I've got a lot more practice under my belt and say, "Ah, I remember when."

The only thing left now is to weld on the receiver tube. I'm not looking forward to it because the corners are rounded, and I'm going to have the same problem with it that I did with the hooks' bevels, only worse. I'm not sure what to do. I guess maybe I should treat it like a closed root pass and use a back-and-forth V motion, dipping deep into the bevel each time? Easy to say...

 

[joshuabardwell]

Oh, another thing I learned: tip the hook slightly away from the direction of the first tack welds, so that when they cool, they pull it perpendicular. Otherwise, they will pull it out of true.

And another thing: things that you have been welding on stay hot for a long time. And if you want to know whether they're still hot, touching them with your hand is a dumb way to do it. (But when I touched it with the glove on, I couldn't feel a thing!) Fortunately, it was just "whoah" hot, not, "burned myself" hot. I'm really an idiot sometimes...