Hi I'm Ted from Everything Attachments. And we're here today with the Bradco Brand of compact, 4 in 1 buckets. Now, compact tractors and skid steers are going the exact opposite direction. Compact tractors are getting more horsepower and less weight everyday. A skid steer loader is gaining some horse power, but they're gaining weight big time when you add tracks and so forth. So you really have to design a compact 4 in 1 bucket the opposite way of what you would a skid steer bucket.
So I'm going to try to explain why some of the things are thin in this bucket, but they are built for a compact tractor. And there's give and takes with this whole deal, and the winner really is the bucket that works the best and is the lightest.
So, we're just going to show you the different things, and the way they make this bucket. And some things may seem a little thin. And the only thing that I would say seems a little thin to me are these cutting edges. But this bucket has three of them, and if I double the weight of these cutting edges, the overall weight goes up so much, that it just becomes not as usable on a midsize compact tractor.
So, this is the 72 inch width one, it comes in three widths. It comes in a 60, a 66, and a 72. For the compact tractors, remember it has three cutting edges on it. These are high carbon, steel cutting edges that are meant to be cutting edges. So, you've got a cutting edge here, a cutting edge here for back dragging that's beveled, and a cutting edge that's welded into your dozer blade. They all have double welds on them, to give them extra strength to connect them to the steel they're connected to. As you can see, this whole side is quarter inch plate. This would be a high quality plate, not just a mild steel, so it's strong steel and it's thin, that's actually pretty thick. But there's places that are thin but they're meant to be strong because they use a good quality of steel.
Just like one way of saving weight, turn me to the side a little bit Peanut, one good way of saving weight but making it stronger, stronger, is this casted hinge. And we'ill show you a picture of that. But as you can see, this is one piece of metal. And then this broken bit right here, that gives you your teeth marks, for your gripping of your four in one bucket. This whole plate is quarter inch, so that's plenty strong. As you can see the cutting edges are thin here, what I would call thin, it's 3/8 of an inch. Now my brother owns the company, Construction Attachments, he just re-designed his 4 in 1 bucket. He put half inch thick cutting edges in it. It's a heck of a bucket. But it just got a little bit heavy for the smaller, for, your know, smaller compact tractors. This, your barely going to notice the difference between this bucket and the standard bucket that would come on your machine. And that's the good part because that means you'll want to leave it on your machine, use it when you need to, instead of changing back and forth constantly, and or needing to take two buckets with you to a jobsite.
So, the Bradco products are really good products. They use the greased pins down through the center. They do have the dual cylinders on them. They protected the back of the hose as well, we'll show you that. But, if your looking at a bucket, and you say, well this 3/8's cutting edge is just too thin, well, that is pretty thin, but if you see the way they are welded in here, and this is a double plated bottom, and we'll show you that. It's what it takes to make a 4 in 1 bucket to be right, for these new, lighter weight, compact tractors.
Okay, So on the side here, you can see the cylinder, you see the casted hinge, you see the jaws, the two cutting edges. This back cutting edge would be used when you roll the bucket down and back drag or back, drag a bank off or something, after your done. This is all quarter inch steel on the side. All the hoses are run through a channel here, so this is a double lip here. And so, places like this that take the push, it's more trouble and more expense to weld in these three pieces here, then it would be to simply put a plate there. But, your just adding more weight for no reason. So this is a good way to keep the weight out of it, but the strip that your need. If you'll notice, the back of the bucket, it's double edged also, because the cutting edge is on the other side and rounded. But they make this flat so you can back drag your dirt. They get to put a good lint cylinder on here. This bucket has a 29 inch opening, which is about as high as any in the industry. And I like having the wide opening there. You can see the two rows of welds there, which is in a double plated piece here. If you can see it, and I don't know that you can, you'll see weld marks about every foot where they have added extra bracing in here, and they welded it back flush, inside of this two layered piece here, we have a double floor.
They have put all the plumbing in behind here, these caps are just holding where the hoses go. So they've made that real nice. You've got your standard quick attach skid steer hitch. They've even added the brackets like we use for our one touch kits here to keep the hoses in place from moving around. Nice, big pins on the bottom that are greasable, top and bottom. So out of all the 4 in 1 buckets, for compact tractors, this is probably my favorite today. We've looked at a lot of other buckets, and the Bradco bucket is definitely the not cheapest, but they have spend extra time and extra quality of steel, simply trying to keep this bucket as light as it can be. 430 pounds. And that's as light as you're going to get a good quality bucket. And as long as it doesn't bend or anything, you don't need a heavier bucket. So far I have sold a lot of these, I've never had a call yet with a bent bucket. If you've got any questions or have a size miss for your tractor, give us a call or an email at Everything Attachments, and we'll be happy to help you.