Excavator bucket

Abstract

An excavator bucket, which includes a mounting and a blade. The blade extends downwardly from the mounting at an angle of between 40 degrees and 50 degrees. The blade has a mounting attachment end which is attached to the mounting, a ground piercing end, and opposed upstanding outwardly angled sidewalls. The blade has a forward oriented curvature or bend spaced from the ground piercing end.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an excavator bucket designed to minimize ground disturbance during use.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

When working in environmentally sensitive areas it is desirable to minimize ground disturbance. There will hereinafter be described an excavator bucket that was expressly developed for use in such environmentally sensitive areas.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to the present invention there is provided an excavator bucket, which comprises a mounting and a blade. The blade extends downwardly from the mounting at an angle of between 40 degrees and 50 degrees. The blade has a mounting attachment end which is attached to the mounting, a ground piercing end, and opposed upstanding outwardly angled sidewalls. The blade having a forward oriented curvature or bend spaced from the ground piercing end.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features of the invention will become more apparent from the following description in which reference is made to the appended drawings, the drawings are for the purpose of illustration only and are not intended to in any way limit the scope of the invention to the particular embodiment or embodiments shown, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation view of the excavator bucket constructed in accordance with the teachings of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front elevation view of the excavator bucket of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a top plan view of the excavator bucket of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a side elevation view of an alternative embodiment of the excavator bucket of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The preferred embodiment, an excavator bucket generally identified by reference numeral 10, will now be described with reference to FIG. 1 through 3.

Structure and Relationship of Parts:

Referring to FIG. 1, excavator bucket 10 includes a mounting 12 including mounting plate 13 and a blade 14. Blade 14 extends downwardly from mounting 12 at an angle of 45 degrees, but preferably between 40 degrees and 50 degrees. Referring to FIG. 3, blade 14 has a mounting attachment end 16, a ground piercing end 18, and opposed upstanding sidewalls 20. Referring to FIG. 2, sidewalls 20 may angle outwardly from blade 14, such by an outward bend of between 10 and 45 degrees. As sidewalls 20 extend upward and outward, it is easier to remove soil from blade 14 during digging. Getting the dirt out of buckets or blades is a particular concern in wet clay or sticky mud. If wet clay or mud is being dug, it may also be preferable to have shorter sidewalls 20. To improve the ground piercing capability of blade 14, teeth 22 may project forward from ground piercing end 18. Referring again to FIG. 1, blade 14 has a forward oriented bend 24 at an angle of 20 degrees, but preferably between 15 degrees and 25 degrees. As depicted, sidewalls 20 slope downwardly from bend 24 to ground piercing end 18, such that sidewalls 20 are negligible at ground piercing end 18. Bend 24 is spaced from ground piercing end 18 approximately one third of the way along blade 14. The length of blade 14 from attachment end 16 to ground piercing end 18 is greater than five times the width of blade 14 between sidewalls 20.

Operation:

Excavator bucket 10 is attached to a prime mover, such as a back hoe, by mounting 12.

Excavator bucket 10 is inserted and moves through the ground based primarily on the horizontal pulling force pulling toward the prime mover (not shown) to provide the necessary force to excavate. The pulling force of the excavator moves material into excavator bucket 10 as blade 14 moves horizontally along the length of the ditch. It is to be noted that this is a horizontal force and does not use a tip radius or curl force, as do other buckets. Teeth 22 help ground piercing end 18 to break and pass through the soil. Bend 24 assists in moving soil into and upward along excavator bucket 10 from ground piercing end 18 toward attachment end 16.

Once excavator bucket 10 is filled, low sidewalls 20 which are tilted outwardly allows for easy cleaning of excavator bucket 10 in most, if not all soil conditions.

While excavator bucket 10 may be made in any size, it is preferred that it be made long and narrow. The desired length will depend upon the depth of ditch or trench being excavated.

It is preferred that the length of blade 14 be selected to enable excavator bucket to reach the desired depth for the trench without mounting plate 13 for the quick attached assembly entering into the ditch. This allows the trench to be much narrower, perhaps as much as one third of the width of trenches dug with conventional excavator buckets.

Variation:

Referring to FIG. 4, instead of blade 14 having a single bend 24 as depicted in FIG. 1, blade 14 could also have a curvature (continuous bend) that begins at attachment end 16 and continues until ground piercing end 18, or that includes a substantial portion of blade 14. If this were done, it would be a tangent taken at a point partway along blade 14 that would be at 45 degrees, and a tangent taken near ground piercing end 18 that would be at 20 degrees.

In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be one and only one of the elements.

It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that modifications may be made to the illustrated embodiment without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as hereinafter defined in the Claims.

Claims

1. An excavator bucket, comprising:

a mounting;

a blade extending downwardly from the mounting at an angle of between 40 degrees and 50 degrees, the blade having a mounting attachment end which is attached to the mounting, a ground piercing end, and opposed upstanding outwardly angled sidewalls, and the blade having a forward oriented curvature or bend spaced from the ground piercing end.

2. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the bend is at an angle of between 15 degrees and 25 degrees.

3. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the sidewalls are angled outwardly from the blade.

4. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein teeth project forward from the ground piercing end.

5. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the curvature or bend being spaced from the ground piercing end approximately one third of the way along the blade.

6. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the sidewalls slope downardly from the curvature or bend to the ground piercing end, the sidewalls being negligible at the ground piercing end.

7. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the blade has a width of between 10 inches and 30 inches.

8. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the blade has a length from the attachment end to the ground piercing end that is greater than five times a width of the blade between the sidewalls.

9. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the mounting comprises a mounting plate, the width of the blade being narrower than the width of the mounting plate.

10. The excavator bucket as defined in claim 1, wherein the blade has a length of between 5 feet and 7 feet.