Earthmoving bucket
The most common attachment, and the one whose choice is most often made by default.
It needs no hydraulics:
the only question is that of the interface and the width.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Catalogue by use
All equipment
Classified by what you have to do, not by the vocabulary of the trade.
Each
attachment says what it does and whether it needs an auxiliary hydraulic
line.
The fifteen families
- 01 — Digging and ditching
- 02 — Coupling and adapting
- 03 — Demolishing and breaking
- 04 — Sorting and gripping
- 05 — Recycling and recovering
- 06 — Drilling and compacting
- 07 — Cutting and milling
- 08 — Handling and lifting
- 09 — Maintaining green spaces
- 10 — Roads and winter
- 11 — Equipping and securing the machine
- 12 — Wear parts
- 13 — Working the soil
- 14 — Feeding and ensiling
- 15 — Site essentials
The auxiliary hydraulic line is the first filter.
Many mini-excavators are not fitted with one:
without it, no breaker, no
grab, no auger, no screening bucket.
It is spotted by the presence of
hoses at the end of the dipper arm.
The indication given here applies to the current version of the tool.
Some
mechanical versions are worked by the bucket ram and need no
auxiliary line — that is one of the points checked in the study.
You choose by the job to be done, not by the name of the tool.
Synthetic video.
01
Digging and ditching
Moving soil, opening and finishing a ditch.
The widest and most accessible family:
most of these tools need no hydraulics and fit any machine whose coupler is known.
Ditching bucket
Wide, smooth and toothless, the ditching bucket does not dig:
it profiles.
It is the tool for finishing, for the even bank and the clean ditch.
- Auxiliary line
- —
Trapezoidal bucket
The shape of the bucket is the shape of the ditch.
One pass is enough to give the section, both banks and the bottom — with no reworking, no levelling, no finishing.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Skeleton bucket
A bucket whose floor is open:
the fine soil passes between the bars, the stones stay inside.
The sorting is done while loading, with no extra machine.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Ripper teeth and rippers
A single tooth concentrates the whole force of the machine on one point.
It loosens cracked rock, pulls out stumps and opens compact ground — with no hydraulic line at all.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Grading blades and rakes
Spreading, levelling, gathering, building a heap back up.
Passive tools, with no hydraulics at all, that save hours on finishing a platform.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Reinforced bucket
The same work as an earthmoving bucket, in ground that wears.
It does not dig better:
it lasts longer.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Rock bucket
Closed profile, reinforced edge, teeth made to penetrate.
It loads what has already been broken up — it does not break it up.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Grading bucket
Wide, smooth, toothless.
It does not dig:
it grades, it smooths, it finishes.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required, except the tilting version
Tilting ditching bucket
It tilts hydraulically, so the slope is set at the tool.
The machine no longer moves to correct half a degree.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Narrow trenching bucket
A narrow trench means less spoil to take out and less backfill to bring back.
Over a length of it, the difference becomes a line on the quotation.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Bucket with bolt-on teeth
The tooth wears, the tooth is replaced.
The body of the bucket, for its part, must never touch the ground.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Smooth toothless bucket
A working bucket with the teeth taken off.
It loads and it picks up again:
but it leaves no furrow behind it.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Tilting bucket
A ram tilts the body of the bucket.
The slope is followed at the tool:
the tracks no longer move to catch up half a degree.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
High-capacity bucket
More material per cycle, so fewer cycles.
The gain exists only if the product is light:
otherwise you fill it half way.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Weed-cutting bucket
A slotted bucket, for cleaning out under water.
The water drains away as it comes up:
what remains is what you wanted to take out.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Stripping bucket
Wide, toothless, and capacious all the same.
It takes off a layer of constant thickness over a whole area — and it moves the volume of it.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
4-in-1 bucket
The bottom opens like a jaw.
A single tool to dig, scrape, grip and meter out:
provided you accept that none of the four is done at its best.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Bucket with an opening bottom
It empties from below.
The bucket no longer needs to turn over to release its contents:
it lays them where they are needed, and only as much as is needed.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Quarry bucket
A production tool, not a site tool.
It is sized by the cycle:
so many lorries in the day, every day, in the same material.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Forestry bucket
Stumps, roots, stones, soil mixed with wood.
Forest ground does not wear a bucket the way fill does:
it punctures it.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Planting bucket
Narrow, deep, often V-shaped or half-moon.
It opens a planting pit:
not a cylindrical hole, a pit.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Lightweight aluminium bucket
Lightening the bucket increases what the machine can carry.
That gain is paid for elsewhere:
on wear, and on repair.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Multi-ripper rake
Several ripper teeth mounted as a rake.
It opens the ground and it gathers:
decompaction and clearing in the same movement.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Grading beam
A screed, drawn at the end of the dipper arm.
It pushes no material:
it finishes a layer already graded, over its whole width, in a single pass.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
02
Coupling and adapting
Making the tool hold at the end of the arm.
The family that governs all the others:
it is the interface that decides what you will be able to fit tomorrow, and in how much time.
No coupler type is an obstacle — it is the tool that adapts to yours.
Mechanical quick coupler
The locking is manual:
the driver gets down, puts it in place, locks it.
It is the first step between knocking out pins and a tool carrier.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Hydraulic quick coupler
The locking is controlled from the cab.
Changing tools stops being an operation and becomes an everyday movement.
- Auxiliary line
- Dedicated control line
Fully automatic coupler
The hydraulic connection is made at the same time as the locking.
The driver changes a breaker for a bucket without getting down or connecting a hose.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, with a dedicated control
Symmetrical type S coupler
The symmetrical standard of Swedish origin, often called “Volvo type”.
Sizes S30 to S90:
the number follows the class of the machine.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version, mechanical or hydraulic
Coupler taking the original pins
It grips the tool's pins instead of requiring a mounting plate.
That is what makes it possible to keep in service tools that were never designed for a coupler.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version
Tilting coupler
It gives the tool sideways tilt, but not rotation.
It is half of a tiltrotator — and often the half that is used most.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Mini-excavator quick coupler
The same logic as on a large machine, with two tight constraints:
the weight added, and the hydraulics available.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version
Lehnhoff system
One of the systems met with regularly, alongside the S and CW types.
It is dealt with exactly like the others:
through the mounting plate.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version
OilQuick system
A fully automatic coupler:
the hydraulic connection is made with the locking.
The driver no longer gets down, even for a hydraulic tool.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, with a dedicated control
Klac system
A French system, very present on the mini-excavator market.
Modules identified by a letter, C to F and beyond.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the module, mechanical or hydraulic
Morin system
A French system with play take-up, modules M0 to M9.
Common in the hire trade, and recognisable in that it compensates for wear instead of suffering it.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the module
CW type coupler
A Verachtert designation, very widespread in Europe.
Sizes CW05 to CW70:
as for the S type, the number follows the class of the machine.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version, mechanical or hydraulic
Liebherr system
A manufacturer's coupler, fitted as original equipment on its machines.
It is read off at the end of the dipper arm, never from a catalogue.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version, mechanical or hydraulic
Martin system
Met with on the French market, above all in the small classes.
It is read off on the machine before buying the tool.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version, mechanical or hydraulic
MBI system
It is met with above all under demolition tools.
The condition of the locks matters there as much as the geometry.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version, mechanical or hydraulic
Direct pin-on mounting
The tool mounts directly on the dipper arm pins.
No intermediate coupler:
cheaper, more rigid, and slower to change.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Hydraulic rotator
Continuous rotation, without the tilt.
It is what is found under a grapple or a sorting grab, where orientation matters more than slope.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Tiltrotator
It is inserted between the coupler and the tool and gives it two freedoms the machine does not have:
sideways tilt, and continuous rotation through 360°.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, several circuits
Mini-excavator tiltrotator
The same function as on a large machine.
But on a mini-excavator, what it adds at the end of the arm is taken directly off the useful reach.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, several circuits
Weld-on mounting plate
It is the part that brings a tool to the format of your coupler.
It is the reason why you do not have to change coupler:
it is the tool that adapts.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Bolt-on mounting plate
The same function as a welded mounting plate, without a welding set and without any permanent modification.
It can be taken off, which is sometimes the whole question.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Adapter between two systems
It allows a tool of one standard to be fitted on a coupler of another.
It is the way of keeping going when you inherit a mixed fleet.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Coupler conversion kit
The set of parts that moves a fleet from one standard to another.
It is not a tool purchase:
it is a fleet decision.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the technology aimed at
Auxiliary hydraulic line
It is the first question, even before the flow.
Without an auxiliary line:
no breaker, no grab, no auger, no screening bucket.
- Auxiliary line
- It is the line itself
Coupler safety check valve
It prevents the coupler from opening if a line lets go.
It is what stands between the tool and the ground on the day something breaks.
- Auxiliary line
- On the control line
Lifting eyes
The hitching point provided, calculated and marked for slinging a load.
Lifting with an excavator is regulated:
it is not a diverted use of the bucket.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Centralised greasing
A pump distributes grease to the joints at regular intervals.
What changes is not the quality of the greasing:
it is the fact that it happens.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
03
Demolishing and breaking
Breaking rock, concrete and scrap.
The family that demands most of the machine:
all these tools need an auxiliary line, and the flow matters there as much as the tonnage.
This is where the matching is checked line by line.
Hydraulic breaker
The hydraulic hammer breaks rock, concrete and asphalt by percussion.
It is the most requested attachment, and the one where the match with the machine is checked most closely.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Concrete crusher
Two jaws squeeze the concrete until it bursts, and leave the reinforcement bare.
Without a blow, without vibration:
the noise and the shaking disappear with the percussion.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Hydraulic shear
It cuts steel, it does not crush it.
Beam, plate, cable, section:
the shear cuts cleanly what a demolition grab would only twist.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Demolition grabs
The grab demolishes by squeezing, with no percussion and no vibration.
It separates the concrete from its reinforcement as it goes, which turns demolition into a sorting operation.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Mini-excavator breaker
The same principle as on a large machine, on a machine that has almost no margin.
The hydraulic line decides first:
without it, there is nothing to discuss.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Silenced hydraulic breaker
A casing encloses the body of the hammer.
It acts on the noise the hammer itself makes:
not on that of the material breaking.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Breaker point and chisel
It is the part that touches the material, so the part that wears.
The profile is chosen on what is being broken;
the service life is decided by the maintenance.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required — wear part
Multi-processor
A body, a ram, a rotation — and jaws that are changed.
It is the carrier tool:
it is the jaws that decide the work.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, two circuits
Scrap shear
The name designates a use more than a separate technology:
cutting metal already on the ground, and bringing it down to the length that fits in a skip.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Crocodile shear
A jaw hinged at one end, which opens like a mouth.
The name comes from the shape:
it does not designate a separate technical family.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Concrete pulveriser
It does not bring the structure down:
it picks up on the ground what has fallen, reduces the concrete and leaves the bars bare.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Interchangeable jaws
These are not tools:
they are the sets that a multiprocessor body takes.
They decide the material that can be handled.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required — they fit on the carrier tool
Demolition ram
It does not strike, it does not squeeze:
it pushes.
The force comes from the arm and the ram, not from a beating piston.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version
Rock-armour grab
It takes natural blocks, irregular, heavy.
Laying rock armour is not loading a heap:
each block is placed.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
04
Sorting and gripping
Gripping, sorting, laying.
The excavator becomes a handling machine.
A few of these tools work without any hydraulics:
that is often the way in for a small machine on this kind of work.
Hydraulic sorting grab
The sorting grab handles the gripping and moving of materials on demolition and recycling sites.
It fits on the dipper arm of a tracked excavator as well as a wheeled one.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Scrap and timber grapples
Several tines meet at the centre and close around the load.
Where a grab squeezes between two jaws, the grapple wraps around — that is what lets it pick up loose material.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Clamshell bucket
Two shells that close vertically.
It is the tool for what has to be taken from above:
where a bucket cannot tip, it can go down.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Hydraulic thumb
An articulated finger, opposite the bucket.
What the machine could only push, it now grips — and the bucket it already has becomes a hand.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version
Concrete skip
It is not mounted on the coupler:
it is suspended.
That is not a detail of fitting — it is what tips the operation into another set of rules.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Orange peel grab
Several shells hinged about the same axis, closing into a sphere.
What is taken does not come back out:
that is the whole difference.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, two circuits (opening and rotation)
Multi-tine grapple
Two jaws fitted with tines that interlock.
What is bulky is held:
what is fine passes between the tines, and that is intended.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, two circuits (opening and rotation)
Four-tine multi-purpose grab
Four tines closing onto a counter-jaw.
It is not a grapple:
it is a vice, and it holds what is flat, long or on its own.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, two circuits (opening and rotation)
Timber grapple
Two curved jaws, made for the shape of timber.
It takes an armful, lifts it and lays it down:
it cuts nothing.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, two circuits (opening and rotation)
Log grab
It grips the piece, not the armful.
A log held firmly is laid where you want it:
that is all that is asked of it.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, two circuits (opening and rotation)
Block grab
It takes the block by the sides.
No sling to pass round, so nobody to send into contact with it:
that is the real argument.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, two circuits (opening and rotation)
Rail grab
It grips the rail and holds it.
The tool is the simple part of the problem:
the rest is access to the track.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, two circuits (opening and rotation)
Multi-sleeper lifting beam
Several sleepers taken together, laid down in line.
It is not an earthmoving tool:
it is a lifting accessory.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Grab bucket and crocodile fork for loaders
A bucket or a fork, and a toothed arm that closes.
Silage and manure stay held as far as the trough or the heap.
- Hitch
- Loader or telehandler
Multi-purpose loader bucket
A rounded bucket, a grab, side walls that can be removed.
It takes silage, manure and long materials.
- Hitch
- Loader or telehandler
Timber grapple for tractors and loaders
Two toothed jaws that close by cylinder.
The trunk and the branch are loaded, sorted and stacked.
- Hitch
- Tractor, loader or telehandler
05
Recycling and recovering
Treating the material on site rather than carting it away.
These tools work the material in the bucket itself, and are hungry for flow:
it is the family where an undersized machine shows immediately.
Crusher bucket
It loads rubble and out comes aggregate.
The material does not leave the site:
it changes state on the spot, in the bucket.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Screening bucket
The screening bucket sorts the material in the bucket itself, on the site.
The spoil becomes a reusable material instead of a waste to be hauled away and then bought back.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Star screening bucket
Shafts fitted with rubber stars turn in opposite directions.
Where a grid clogs, the stars clean themselves — it is the tool for wet soil.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Mixing bucket
The mixing bucket makes the concrete or the mortar in the bucket, at the point of use.
It answers three situations:
difficult access, small volumes, and a need spread over the day.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Rotary screening bucket
A drum that turns, and material that breaks up as it turns.
The fines pass through the grid:
the oversize stays inside and is emptied out at the end of the cycle.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Screening and crushing bucket
It does not merely separate:
it reduces, then it grades.
One pass instead of two, but hydraulics under markedly more strain.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Hydraulic magnet
It picks up metal without gripping it.
The problem is not the hitching:
it is finding, on the machine, what will feed it.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, plus a supply of current on board
Grid bucket
A bucket whose bottom lets the fines through.
No motor, no line:
the separation is done by the movement of the arm.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
06
Drilling and compacting
Boring a regular hole, closing a trench again.
Repetitive work where the machine replaces a gang:
the regularity of the result matters more than raw power.
Hydraulic auger
The auger bores regular holes for posts, fences, planting or light foundations.
Over a series of holes, it replaces a gang.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Vibratory pile driver
It does not strike, it vibrates.
The ground fluidises around the pile, which goes down on its own — and comes back up the same way when it has to be pulled out.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Vibrating plate and compaction wheel
Compacting the bottom of an excavation without sending anyone down into it.
With these tools, the first gain is not a gain in time:
it is a gain in safety.
- Auxiliary line
- —
Directional drilling rig
Taking a service under a road, a driveway or a wall without opening them.
You go in on one side, you come out on the other, and between the two nothing has moved.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Screw splitter
A threaded cone that screws into the log and opens it by forcing the fibres apart.
No ram, no travel to wait for:
the wood opens as the screw goes down.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Auger flight
It is the part that works, so the part that wears.
It is chosen on the ground being drilled, not on the machine:
the auger motor, for its part, does not change.
- Auxiliary line
- Carried by the auger
Sheet-pile vibratory driver
The principle is that of the vibratory pile driver:
no blow, a vibration that makes the friction of the soil collapse.
What changes here is what the clamp grips — a sheet-pile section, not a stake.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Driving hammer
It strikes.
Where the vibratory driver fluidises the soil, it drives by repeated blows:
that is what makes it effective in compact or stony ground, where vibration refuses.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Compaction wheel
No moving part, no hydraulics, no circuit to maintain.
It compacts by rolling, through the weight of the machine alone:
it is the simplest compaction tool that fits on an excavator.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Breaker-mounted compactor
A compaction plate fitted in the nose of the hammer, in place of the point.
The percussion of the breaker becomes the source of the tamping:
you compact with the tool you already have.
- Auxiliary line
- That of the breaker
Arm-mounted drilling module
A mast and a drilling head fitted at the end of the dipper arm.
The excavator does the work of a drilling rig where you would not bring one:
a bank, a narrow platform, a short job.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, often beyond one circuit
Auger for tractors and loaders
An auger that turns in the ground, on the tractor or the loader.
It drills the hole for the post or the stake.
- Hitch
- Tractor, loader or telehandler
07
Cutting and milling
Cutting in cleanly rather than tearing out.
Cutting before opening changes what will have to be done again afterwards:
asphalt torn out with a bucket lifts at its edges.
These tools all demand flow, and they produce dust and noise — two site constraints before being two machine constraints.
Hydraulic cutter
A drum fitted with picks turns at high speed and rasps the material instead of striking it.
You take off what you want, to the thickness you want, without shaking what remains around it.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Drum cutter
Two drums bristling with picks, mounted across the tool.
They rasp the material instead of striking it:
you take off what you want, to the thickness you want, and the rest does not move.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Vertical drum cutter
The same principle as the drum cutter, another geometry:
the axis of the rollers is in line with the tool, and the cutter goes down into the material instead of planing it.
It opens a slot where a transverse drum will not fit.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Asphalt planer
The same pick drum, applied to a road surface.
It takes off a thickness of asphalt and leaves a regular base:
it is the tool for the patches that a road planer cannot reach.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Rock chain saw
A chain fitted with cutting elements turns around a flat bar.
It plunges into the material instead of going round it:
the depth no longer depends on the radius of a disc.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Diamond circular saw
A diamond disc driven hydraulically, mounted on the excavator arm.
It draws a clean line in the concrete or the masonry:
you no longer demolish, you cut and you take down.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Chain trencher
Let us say it plainly:
the chain trencher and the trencher are the same tool.
The name stresses the cutting part, the toothed chain that turns around a plunging boom.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Rock chain trencher
The same architecture as the chain trencher:
a plunging boom, a chain, a slot with vertical walls.
What changes is the equipment of the chain, made to attack ground that soil teeth will not go through.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
08
Handling and lifting
Carrying, laying and lifting what cannot be taken with a bucket.
The excavator serves here as a lifting appliance, and lifting has its own rules:
a hitching point calculated and marked, a known maximum load, safety devices.
It is the family where the tool is the simplest part of the problem.
Pallet forks and lifting hook
Two simple tools, without hydraulics, that turn the excavator into a handling machine.
And two tools where the regulations matter more than the technique.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Lifting hook
A slinging point provided, marked, fitted with a safety catch.
Lifting with an excavator is not forbidden:
it is regulated, and it assumes a part made for it.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Lifting jib
A jib that takes the place of the bucket and carries the hook further out.
What it gains in reach:
it loses in permissible load.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Pipe clamp
It grips the pipe instead of slinging it.
The hold is firm and can be turned:
the joint is made with nobody under the load.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Pipe layer
It lowers the pipe into the trench, presents it, then releases it.
What it avoids is simple to name:
somebody at the bottom, under a suspended load.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version, mechanical or hydraulic
Hydraulic winch
It pulls by cable what cannot be carried.
Its usual carrier is most often another machine:
on an excavator, the use is checked case by case.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, with a dedicated control
Tipping handling skip
It does not dig:
it carries, then it empties where it is told.
It is a container, not an earthmoving tool.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version, mechanical or hydraulic
Load cell and load limiter
The load cell weighs:
it gives information.
The limiter prevents:
it acts.
Confusing the two is the most frequent mistake on this subject.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the device
Pallet box rotator
Two forks on a slewing ring.
The box turns and empties without being handled by hand.
- Hitch
- Loader
Big bag filling bucket
A bucket with a discharge gate.
It meters bulk material into the bag, without tipping.
- Hitch
- Loader
Poultry crate fork
Two long tines, at a fixed spacing.
The stack of crates is picked up whole.
- Hitch
- Loader
Bale clamp
Two arms that close by means of a ram.
The bale is gripped from the sides, the film stays intact.
- Hitch
- Loader or telehandler
Bale transport and bale spikes
Spikes that pierce, or tubes that carry.
The bale is loaded and stacked, in front of or behind the tractor.
- Hitch
- Tractor or loader
Farm loader bucket
A bucket cut out for the loader.
It is chosen with the material, from grain to stone.
- Hitch
- Loader or telehandler
Pallet fork and loader carriage
A carriage and two forged tines.
The loader becomes a forklift.
- Hitch
- Loader or telehandler
Silage and unloading fork
Long tines, an arm or a blade.
It pushes the grass up onto the silo, then takes up the silage and cuts the face clean.
- Hitch
- Loader, telehandler or tractor
Bale unroller
A round bale that turns or moves forward.
The forage settles in a strip along the trough, without a fork.
- Hitch
- Tractor, loader or telehandler
09
Maintaining green spaces
Clearing scrub, mulching, felling.
Vegetation work from the machine, with nobody working on the ground.
The flow required is high and often continuous, unlike earthmoving tools.
Rotary mulcher and flail mower
The rotary mulcher reduces the vegetation on the spot and leaves the material on the ground.
No collecting, no hauling away — that is what makes it pay on long stretches.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Circular-saw hedge trimmer
Several circular saws in line on a bar.
The saw cutter trims a whole face in a single pass, and it trims it cleanly — where a mulcher would tear.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Circular pruning saw
The saw cuts branches and trunks at a distance and at height, from the machine.
No platform, no climber, no work on the ground under the branch to be cut.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Tree shear and felling head
It cuts and it holds.
The tree does not fall:
it stays gripped in the tool, and the operator sets it down where they decided.
It is the holding, more than the cutting, that makes the value of this family.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Forestry rake
Spaced tines that hold back stumps and let the soil through.
The whole tool lies in that gap:
you take away the wood, you keep the soil.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Forestry mulching head
A heavy rotor, cutting tools, and wood that becomes chip.
What is mulched stays on the ground:
there is no windrow, no lorry, no tip.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Disc brush cutter
Armed discs that turn, and a stem cut through at one stroke.
It is not mulching:
it is a cut, and the difference shows in the regrowth.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Arm-mounted flail mower
An articulated arm that carries a mulching head and walks it along a verge.
Its usual carrier is not an excavator:
it is a tractor.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Stump grinder
A toothed disc that attacks the stump in successive passes.
It does not pull it out:
it eats it, on the spot, down below ground level.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Stump grubbing claw
Long tines, passed under the stump, and the whole force of the arm behind them.
It wears nothing away:
it pulls out, and it brings the whole stump up.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Log splitter
A wedge, a ram, and a log that opens.
The point is not to split harder:
it is to split where the wood has fallen, without carrying it.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, one double-acting circuit
Pruning bar
Cutting at height without a platform and without a climber, from the arm of the machine.
The name covers several tools:
it is the work aimed at that separates them.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Weed cutter
A cutter bar passed under the water, in a ditch or a pond.
It cuts the aquatic vegetation:
it does not take it out.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Branch chipper for tractors
A rotor hitched to the rear of the tractor.
It turns branches and twigs into chips, on the spot.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Watering arm for tractors
An articulated hydraulic arm, hitched to the tractor.
It carries water above the plants, the tank stays separate.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Firewood strapping cradle
A cradle carried on the loader.
The logs are strapped in it, then the bundle leaves in a single lift.
- Hitch
- Loader
Shear and tool-carrier arm for tractors
A cutter bar at the end of an arm.
It trims the hedge and the branch from the track.
- Hitch
- Tractor, loader or telehandler
Hammer flail mulcher for tractors
A horizontal rotor fitted with hammers or knives.
It shreds grass, brush and stalks, and leaves the mulch on the spot.
- Hitch
- Tractor
10
Roads and winter
Maintaining the road, in winter as in summer.
A family of its own, with its own cycles:
local authorities and roads-and-utilities firms buy on an annual budget, and winter equipment is decided before the autumn.
This is linear work, not one-off sites.
Weed-control brush
A brush that turns and tears out the vegetation established between the setts and in the gutters.
No product, no re-entry period, no risk of drift.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Snow blade
A wide blade at the end of the arm, pushing the snow to the side.
Fitted on an excavator rather than a lorry, it goes where the lorry cannot.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the version
Salt and grit spreader
Clearing the snow is not enough:
what remains freezes again.
The spreader treats the cleared surface, and it does so in the same pass as the blade.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Road sweeper
A roller of bristles that turns and sweeps ahead of it.
With a hopper, it no longer pushes:
it collects, and what is swept up leaves with the tool.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Finishing roller
A cylinder carried at the end of the arm, walked over a surface already graded.
It does not correct the shape:
it tightens it and closes it.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required, except the vibrating version
Snow bucket
A lot of volume, little weight, an edge that does not scratch.
Its usual carrier is not an excavator:
it is a loader or a tractor.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Trencher
A toothed chain that digs a narrow slot, straight and of constant depth.
Where a bucket opens wide and disturbs everything, the trencher takes only what is needed.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Kerb grab
Gripping, lifting and positioning a kerbstone from the machine.
One model recorded is given for excavators from 5 to 16 tonnes, with rotation through 360°.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
Asphalt disc
A trench begins with a cut.
The disc opens the asphalt on the line, without breaking it up around — and it is that cut which decides the quality of the reinstatement, months later.
- Auxiliary line
- Required
High-pressure cleaner
A pump driven by the carrier's hydraulics, and a lance.
Its usual carrier is not an excavator:
it is a tractor or a municipal tool carrier.
- Auxiliary line
- Required, continuous function
Sweeper for tractors, loaders and telehandlers
A rotary brush, with or without a hopper.
It cleans the yard, the cowshed or the road, with a tractor or a loader.
- Hitch
- Tractor, loader or telehandler
11
Equipping and securing the machine
What does not go at the end of the arm, and decides all the same.
This family contains no working tools:
it contains what allows the machine to carry the others.
Lengthening, protecting, guiding, weighing, lighting, feeding — each of these choices changes what the excavator can do, and sometimes what it can carry.
Long-reach boom
It reaches far, further than an original boom.
And as it lengthens, what it can carry decreases:
it is the same movement, seen from both sides.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required for the boom itself
Offset boom
It shifts the line of the trench to the side.
The machine stays in line with the track:
it is the equipment that goes to sit against the wall.
- Auxiliary line
- Required for the hydraulic offset
Dipper arm extension
It is the simplest way to gain reach.
It is also the quickest way to lose load at the end:
the two go together, always.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required, but the existing lines have to be lengthened
Additional counterweight
It restores at the rear what the lengthening has moved forward.
It is not an attachment part:
it is a modification of the machine.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Cab protection screen
It stands between the driver and what falls, what flies, what bounces.
It is protective equipment:
it is chosen on the risk, not on comfort.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
Ram protection
A ram rod does not forgive.
One impact, one scratch, and the seal leaks:
the machine stops for a part that is not repaired on site.
- Auxiliary line
- Not required
2D grade guidance
Sensors on the equipment, a screen in the cab.
The driver sees where the cutting edge is in relation to a reference set on the site:
a depth, a slope.
- Auxiliary line
- Electrical supply
3D machine guidance
The machine no longer works from a peg:
it works in the coordinate system of the project.
It works on a digital model, not on a dimension.
- Auxiliary line
- Electrical supply
On-board bucket weighing
The machine announces what it loads, bucket after bucket.
The lorry leaves at the right weight, the day is counted in real tonnage.
One question remains:
what the figure is for.
- Auxiliary line
- Electrical supply
On-board camera
It makes visible what the driver cannot see.
The blind spot of an excavator is not a matter of comfort:
it is an area where people walk.
- Auxiliary line
- Electrical supply
Boom LED lighting
What has to be lit is not the machine:
it is the place where the tool is working.
It is the positioning that makes the quality of the lighting, not the announced power.
- Auxiliary line
- Electrical supply
On-board hydraulic power pack
The machine has no auxiliary line, or it has one that is not enough.
The power pack brings the hydraulics with it:
it asks the excavator only to carry it.
- Auxiliary line
- It replaces it
12
Wear parts
What wears out so that the rest may last.
A wear part is not a part that breaks:
it is a part that sacrifices itself, and that is replaced before it is finished.
Letting them go to the end always costs more than changing them in time.
⛔ One rule holds for all of them: the dimension is taken on the part in place, never on the machine model alone.
Two machines of the same tonnage do not necessarily carry the same part.
Rubber tracks
They carry the machine and protect the finished ground.
Three numbers identify them:
pad width, pitch, number of links.
- Auxiliary line
- Not applicable
Steel tracks
Where rubber cuts, steel holds.
Repairable link by link, but it marks the ground.
- Auxiliary line
- Not applicable
Pads and over-pads
The pad belongs to the steel track; the over-pad bolts on top of it so as not to mark.
Two different parts, often confused.
- Auxiliary line
- Not applicable
Undercarriage parts
Rollers, sprocket, idler, tensioner.
Their wear decides the life of the track, and not the other way round.
- Auxiliary line
- Not applicable
Pins, bushes and links
Every joint of the arm is a pin in a bush.
Caught early, the repair is a part; caught late, it is a reboring job.
- Auxiliary line
- Not applicable
Bucket wear parts
Teeth, tooth adapters, edges, side protectors.
They sacrifice themselves so that the bucket lasts.
- Auxiliary line
- Not applicable
Cab glazing
A broken windscreen stops the machine as surely as a breakdown.
It can be replaced without going through the manufacturer.
- Auxiliary line
- Not applicable
Hoses and fittings
The cheapest wear part, and the one that costs the most when it is neglected.
The fitting decides the compatibility.
- Auxiliary line
- Depending on the circuit
Stone crusher hammer
The rotor's impact hammers, rebuilt with a hard-metal facing.
They are changed as a complete set.
- Auxiliary line
- Not applicable
13
Working the soil
Working the soil: preparing the ground, removing stones.
These machines are hitched to a tractor, not to an excavator.
For stones, the excavator has its own tools: skeleton bucket, crusher bucket.
Stone windrower
It gathers surface stones into a line, without carrying them away.
The first stage of stone clearing in two passes.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Stone picker
It brings surface stones back to a hopper that is emptied at the end of the field.
Towed, driven by the tractor.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Stone and clod separator
It separates the fine soil from the stones and clods.
Market gardening and potatoes.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Stone crusher
It reduces the stone on the spot, instead of carting it away.
Hitched to the tractor, driven by the power take-off.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Snow-clearing blade for tractors
A wide blade, mounted on the front of the tractor.
It clears snow and debris from large surfaces.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Self-standing mixer
A tub on legs, hitched to the tractor.
It mixes concrete, screed or feed, without a bucket.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Roller, harrow, hoe and stubble cultivator for tractors
Rollers, tines, star wheels or discs.
Carried on the three-point linkage, they reconsolidate, weed, aerate or cultivate stubble.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Concrete mixing bucket for tractors and loaders
A closed bucket that mixes.
The concrete is made in the bucket and emptied where it is poured.
- Hitch
- Loader or telehandler
14
Feeding and ensiling
Feeding and ensiling: compacting the silo, distributing forage, keeping the barn clean.
These tools are mounted on a tractor, a loader or a telehandler, not on an excavator.
They serve livestock farming:
the silo, the feed trough and the barn.
Barn and yard scraper
A flexible scraper, on a pendulum suspension.
It cleans the barn or the yard without damaging the ground.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Silage compaction roller and silage pusher
Steel rings that roll over the silo, and a rotor that spreads.
The forage is compacted in layers, the air is driven out.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Silage spreader
One or two discs that turn flat.
The unloaded grass spreads in thin layers over the silo.
- Hitch
- Tractor
Cubicle aerator
A disc or an auger at the end of a swivelling arm.
The cubicle bedding is loosened from the alley.
- Hitch
- Loader or Euro hitch
Feeding and bedding distributor bucket
A bucket that fills itself and empties to the side.
Silage, bales or straw go to the trough or into the cubicles.
- Hitch
- Loader or telehandler
Silage milling roller
A roller armed with knives, in front of the bucket.
It mills the silo face and leaves a clean surface.
- Hitch
- Loader or telehandler bucket
Manure fork, cutting fork and loader extension
Tines, blades, and an arm that extends the loader.
The simple tools of the barn and the silo.
- Hitch
- Loader, telehandler or tractor
Beet chopper bucket
A bucket that picks up and chops beet.
It pours it into the trough or the feeder.
- Hitch
- Loader, telehandler or tractor
15
Site essentials
Site essentials: preparing the ground before the machine arrives.
These products are not fitted to any machine.
They prepare the site:
the machine passes over without damaging the ground or getting bogged down.
Ground protection mats
Mats laid edge to edge on the ground.
The machine passes, the ground stays intact.
- Hitch
- None, the machine drives over them
Stabiliser pads
A wide pad under each stabiliser.
The foot does not sink into the ground.
- Hitch
- None, laid under the stabiliser
Steel trench plates
A thick plate laid over the excavation.
The street stays open, and so does the trench.
- Hitch
- None, laid over the excavation
Lightweight trench shoring
Aluminium panels against the walls.
The trench stays open, the soil stays in place.
- Hitch
- None, set by the mini-excavator
Ground stabilisation grids
Cellular panels filled with gravel or grass.
Soft ground becomes a firm platform.
- Hitch
- None, laid on the ground
Aluminium loading ramps
Two ramps hooked onto the bed.
The machine drives up under its own power.
- Hitch
- None, hooked onto the bed
Excavation dewatering pump
A pump set in the flooded excavation.
The water goes out, the digging resumes.
- Power source
- Electric or engine-driven
Buried utility detector
A device that locates buried utilities.
The route is marked, then the machine digs.
- Principle
- Electromagnetic
Spill absorbent kit
Absorbents ready on site.
The leak is surrounded, the ground stays clean.
- Contents
- Socks, pads, granules
Fuel transfer tank
A closed tank, with pump and nozzle.
Refuelling is done on site.
- Transfer
- Pump and nozzle
Site barriers and fencing
Fencing on blocks around the machine.
The site is closed, the public kept away.
- Laying
- On blocks, by hand
Does your need fit none of these fifteen families?
Describe the work to be done rather than the tool you are looking for.
It is from the use that
the attachment is deduced, and not the other way round.
Tell us about your worksite Written study within 3 working days, complete file · no obligation
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They show a type of attachment at work;
the model chosen for your machine is the one from the study.