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.
Other names for this tool: drum cutter, pick cutter, hydraulic planer, slotting cutter, rock cutter, cutting head, excavator-mounted planer.
- Family
- Cutting and milling
- Classes (t)
- 1.5 to 60 t
- Coupler
- All, by plate
- Power source
- Hydraulic, continuous function — flow and pressure: we calculate it with you for your machine
What it is for
Right: without percussion, it removes damaged concrete without cracking the sound concrete.
What sets it apart:
no percussion, so almost no vibration — and the depth to the millimetre.
Computer-generated image.
The picks attack the surface by abrasion and tear off chips.
The material
comes away progressively, layer after layer, and the operator controls the depth
to the millimetre by the position of the arm.
It serves where precision counts more than volume:
opening a slot in
asphalt, profiling a rock face, taking up a carriageway in thickness,
dressing the bottom of an excavation, removing damaged concrete without touching the sound.
No percussion, so almost no vibration. That is what
makes it acceptable where the
breaker is not:
next to
an occupied building, above a buried structure, in a tunnel, or on a
site subject to a noise or vibration limit.
On which machine?
They exist for machines from 2 to 60 t.
For example, on an excavator over 20 t, the weight is generally from 1 350 to 2 600 kg.
What the tool does
For example, on an excavator over 20 t: cutting width from 900 to 1 400 mm, torque from 12 100 to 44 500 N·m.
What is needed on the hydraulic side
It needs a hydraulic circuit with continuous function.
It generally needs from 30 to 600 l/min, at a pressure from 180 to 350 bar, depending on the size of the machine.
Figures taken from 8 models on the market.
Your study sets the exact value for your machine.
Have your machine checked.
Give us your excavator model, the exact nature of the material to be removed and
the thickness aimed at.
Say whether the site forbids vibration or noise:
it is often that constraint, and not the output, that designates the cutter.
- Your machine Its make and its tonnage.
- The auxiliary circuit Its flow in l/min, its pressure in bar, single- or double-acting.
- The coupler in place Its system and its class.
- The work The use, and the material.
Without these details, the study still begins: we will ask you for them.
Or call 01 84 16 55 49 · our lines are open 7 days a week, from 7h to 22h.
Written study within 3 working days, once the file is complete.
Synthetic image.
What determines the choice
-
01 — The hardness of what you are attacking
It is the criterion that rules out the most machines.
Asphalt, concrete, soft rock, hard rock:
they are neither the same picks, nor the same output, nor sometimes the same tool.
A cutter badly matched to the material wears instead of cutting. -
02 — The flow available, continuously
The drum must keep its speed during the pass.
A flow that is only just enough makes it slow down at the moment it bites, and the cutter rubs without taking off material — which wears the picks without advancing. -
03 — The type and fixing of the picks
They are the wear parts, and they are consumed quickly in abrasive material.
Whether they can be replaced one by one, without taking the drum off, changes what a day's work costs. -
04 — The orientation of the drums
Depending on the model, the axis is transverse or longitudinal.
That decides the shape of the slot and the accessibility in a confined space — a narrow trench is not cut with just any geometry.
It does not replace the breaker on volume. To bring down
a mass of rock, percussion remains far faster.
The cutter wins when
the constraint is elsewhere:
precision of the level, cleanness of the profile, or
a ban on vibration.
What is checked before ordering
- The auxiliary line and its flow First eliminating criterion, and it is checked continuously, not at peak. See the 7 criteria.
-
The cooling of the circuit
A tool with a continuous function heats the machine's hydraulics.
It is a question to put to the excavator dealer as much as to the supplier of the tool. -
The dust
Dry cutting produces a great deal of it.
If the site requires it to be damped down, the watering has to be provided for — and you have to know where the water will come from before the day itself. -
The weight at the end of the arm and the reach
Profiling a face is done with the arm extended, often at height.
It is the governing case. -
The interface
Coupler type and size, or pin dimensions.
The tool is supplied with the matching plate — see the couplers.
- Family
- Cutting and milling
- Compatibility
- The seven criteria in detail →