my home-made rock bucket

[beerandgasoline]

Allot of work left to do but this is as far as i got with my free time this weekend. Specs on the rock bucket..

Main material is 1.5x.120" wall DOM
teeth are machined from 1020 cold rolled, will be considered replaceable, I sleeved the 4 inches of the teeth with 1.25x.120 dom, in hopes to keep the teeth fairly straight. I'll post more pics as I move forward. I'll eventually be adding 5/8a round stock to minimize the gap for rocks to squeeze through. Just focused on the frame/structure for now

 

[MagKarl]

Looks good! Looking forward to some action pics.

 

[beerandgasoline]

Got my blank quick attach mounting plate today. It's 5/16 thick found it on Amazon hundred dollars free shipping.

 

[gpreuss]

Looks good! What made you decide on .120 wall thickness?

 

[beerandgasoline]

Looks good! What made you decide on .120 wall thickness?

I've got 300 ft of it from another project I never started. Was going to make a v8 rock buggy.. It's a very common size and thickness for off-road roll cages. I also have 1.75" tube but 1.5" seems better for this application. (Lighter)

 

[gpreuss]

Yep - that is what I'd'a done, too.

 

[beerandgasoline]

I got some things done today until I ran out of weld wire. I got lazy towards the end. Should have stopped and came back to it a few days later buy I pushed on.. so it's not as square as it could have been but close enough considering I didn't use any jigs and its probably gonna get bent to **** over time anyways. I'm hard on things lol

 

[beerandgasoline]

still need to finish weld in some spots. Build the sides, and id like to add a lip to the front to keep the larger rocks from kicking back out the front edge. Which I have an idea for.

 

[gpreuss]

I seem to dig and move a lot of rocks, usually in the 150-800 pound range. The smaller ones don't have a particular problem staying in the bucket; for the big ones I keep a couple of 1-1/2" ratchet straps handy, to stop them from rolling out, particularly until the bucket is full curled. With the cross members you already have it should be pretty hard for an individual pipe section to bend, so I don't think you would need the added strength, and question the need for the lip. For the side pieces I'd like heavy weight - maybe 1/2" plate - boomerang looking pieces. The sides of the bucket always manage to interfere with a rock getting into the bucket, pushing it out rather than letting it fall back in..
It looks darn good to me! Being able to see through all of those tubes is the biggest plus - with a bucket you are mostly guessing where the edge meets the rock, and which way they are rolling. Great job!

 

[beerandgasoline]

1/2" holy smokes! I was gonna use 1/4"x4" flat bar and dimple flare 2 1/2" holes for extra support. Maybe I need to re think that

 

[gpreuss]

I'm pretty sure your bucket sides are 3/16", with a 1/4 X 2-1/2 edge.
Frankly, a 1/4 X 4" strap from the pipe top to the rock point would give you the strength OK. I was thinking heavier for the boomerang shape. If you have ballast, you'll have about 2 ton of tractor pushing into this. The diagonal strap should hold OK, but I'd want heavier for the sculpted out curve. Just my thought.

 

[beerandgasoline]

The nice thing about metal is it can almost always be fixed.lol I appreciate your input and it makes total sense to me. I wasn't planning on scooping any undisturbed soil really, I was rather planning on scooping ground that I've already plowed with the rippers on my box blade. So the forces on the sides of the bucket should be substantially less. But we will see. I've got 3 ten# spools of wire and a new liner coming in the mail this week so can't do anything but think til then.