Old digger bucket given new life.

[thehomeengineer]

Hi All
I am in the process of rebuilding a house on a side of a mountain and the ground is full of rocks. so a riddle bucket would be a great addition to remove the larger stone. I first looked to buy a secondhand one with a Harford safe lock hitch with no luck (Plan A). then enquired about a new one. At a price of £680 plus tax and delivery (approx £866.00) an alternative solution was needed (Plan B).

My local auction house has a plant sale monthly and there were plenty of digger buckets there, but none with a Harford Hitch (Plan C). So on to plan D. This was to buy the cheapest 600mm wide bucket i could and modify into a riddle bucket. The bucket I bid on and won, which I thought would be perfect for the job wasn't when I went to collect it, it was firstly to small and secondly to good to cut up.

There were a few unsold buckets so we had now reached Plan E. This was to inquire if they would be interested in selling me an unsold bucket cheap

Had a look at what was left and this old tatty, dirty and abused 35mm pin JCB bucket was perfect. I paid a little more than I wanted at £33.60 which included tax and commission.

Took it home and started to cut it up. The photos below will explain the rest of the modifications.


Original bucket


Taking the teeth off. Had to weld bolt in place to remove nuts


Original 35mm hitch pin cradle removed.


Damaged and cracked bucket back, plasma cut out.


Hitch back of the bucket was repaired badly in the past so this section was also cut out.


A Harford hitch was fabricated from plate and welded to the bucket and a piece of 1" by 1/2" was formed on my hydraulic press to the radius of the back of the bucket to create a spine.


The new Harford Hitch welded to bucket, hopefully my welding will be strong enough.


New fabricated hitch fully welded in place


Bucket all finished and welded up, with all the 3/4" x 1/2" riddle bars, spaced at 2" centres


Bucket waiting for bucket teeth to be refitted.


Completed bucket which took 3 Days to modify and materials coming in at just under £100 including the bucket, welding gas, 4.8m-3/4"x 1/2" black steel, paint etc. So it might have been more cost effective and cheaper to buy a new. But my time is free and I still have £766 in my pocket and a new'ish' riddle bucket.

Thank you for viewing

The Home Engineer