With thousands of excavator operators working each year in a wide variety of applications and material types, we see the effect of abrasives on sloped buckets and wide bucket cutting edges day in and day out.
In this article, we discuss why we offer bolt-on cutting edges as standard equipment on all wide and sloped buckets 5 tons and up.
Bolts on the cutting edges double the thickness of the bucket for a stronger front end, which together with our bucket wrap and wear strips make for a very strong and durable bucket. This means no ribs are required – saving material clogging around the ribs.
The bolt on the blade allows the floor to go further out and you don’t suffer as much wear on the bottom of the side style, if there is no bolt on the blade you will start to wear before you replace the fixed blade – extra work when replacing the fixed cutting edge .
Additionally, due to the extra thickness created by the bolts on the cutting edge, it lifts the entire bucket bottom slightly off the ground – meaning it is less likely to touch the ground when digging or leveling the bucket bottom, reducing drag and wear and tear.
The extra floor length created by the studs on the cutting edge protruding from the front of the fixed cutting edge when the bolts are mounted on the cutting edge increases the capacity of sloped or wide buckets. The extra 75mm of floor length increases capacity by 14.7% on the 12 ton wide bucket.
Our blade bolts are double sided extra heavy duty steel; this means that if both sides wear out, someone who doesn’t have a bolt on the blade will need to cut off the fixed blade and replace it twice (requiring a lot of extra time and resources).
Gone are the days when there are bolts on the blade, cutting off the fixed blade and soldering in a new one (half a day’s work)! Simply remove the plowshare bolts, spin the bolts on the blade to a new blade (replace it if completely worn out) and reinstall the plowshare bolts, and you’ll be back on the job in less than an hour.
Here you know why you should have a bolt on the cutting edge of a wide or sloped bucket. If you have any other questions about cutting edges, please feel free to contact us.
