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Digging and ditching

Skeleton bucket

Barred skeleton bucket, seen at three-quarters, slotted bottom letting the fines through
The bars on the bottom and the sides.
It is their spacing that decides what stays in the bucket.
Synthetic image.

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.

Other names for this tool: barred bucket, bar bucket, slotted bucket, sorting bucket, rock-picking bucket, grid bucket, stone-picking bucket.

The essentials
Family
Digging and ditching
Classes (t)
0.6 to 52 t
Coupler
All, by plate
Power source
None — passive tool

Compare with the screening bucket →

01 Use

What it is for

On the left, the dry soil passes between the bars, stones and roots stay inside. On the right, in wet clay soil, the clods stick and block the bars. Computer-generated image.
the dry soil passes between the bars, stones and roots stay inside in wet clay soil, the clods stick and block the bars
Left: the dry soil passes between the bars, stones and roots stay inside.
Right: in wet clay soil, the clods stick and block the bars.
What sets it apart:
the spacing of the bars is its only setting — and it cannot be changed afterwards.
Computer-generated image.
Grey bar bucket fitted to a small blue loader, seen three-quarter on, on a village road.
Bar bucket on a loader:
the spacing of the bars does all the sorting.
It cannot be adjusted afterwards.
Photo:
D. Stelloh, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, resized, rental company name removed.

The bottom and the sides are replaced by bars.
By loading and then shaking the bucket, the soil and the fines escape, and all that is left is what does not go through:
stones, roots, rubble, scrap.

It is the tool for spoil that you do not want to cart away entirely.
Picking the stones out of a plot, recovering rock armour from spoil, cleaning a fill before reuse, separating the rubble from soil you want to keep.

It is not a screen. It separates in two, roughly, what goes through and what does not.
To obtain a graded particle size and a regular output, it is the screening bucket that you need, and it calls for a hydraulic line.

Why it pays off quickly

Every cubic metre of soil that stays on the site is a cubic metre you do not cart away, and do not buy back afterwards as imported material.
On earthworks for a housing estate or the reworking of a plot, that is where the saving lies — not in the price of the tool.

It needs no hydraulic line at all:
it goes on the coupler and it works.
It is the least costly sorting to set up. See the whole family →

02 Key technical data

On which machine?

They exist for machines from 1,9 to 52 t.
For example, on an excavator over 20 t, the weight is generally from 796 to 3 800 kg.
It fits all couplers via a mounting plate, or the Morin coupler, modules 2 and 3.

What the tool does

For example, for a width of 1 200 mm: capacity from 572 to 1 424 l, number of teeth from 4 to 5.

What is needed on the hydraulic side

It needs no hydraulic connection: it has no motor and no hydraulic circuit.
It generally needs from 130 to 180 l/min, at a pressure from 210 to 230 bar, depending on the size of the machine.

Figures taken from 34 models on the market.
Your study sets the exact value for your machine.

All the measurements found for this equipment →

How to read these values →

03 Your study

Have your machine checked.

Give us your excavator model and above all the nature of your soil:
dry or damp, sandy or clay, and what you are trying to recover.
That is what determines the spacing, and the spacing determines all the rest.

What we need to answer you
  • 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.

Send my photos

or describe your need

Book an appointment with the specialist

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.

Yellow crawler excavator on top of an earth bank, a bar bucket resting on the ground, a second excavator and pylons in the background.
Excavator at work on an earth embankment, a skeleton bucket on the end of the arm.
Sorting is done during loading, with no extra machine.
Photo:
Theo Felten, Pexels licence, via Pexels.
Not to be confused
  • Grid bucket Principle — very often the same tool under another name, the difference, when there is one, lying in the shape of the openings: bars or mesh.
    Use — it is the cut size obtained that should be compared, not the name, to sort a heap occasionally without a hydraulic tool.
  • Ripper teeth and rippers Principle — a single tooth concentrates the force of the arm on one point, without sorting anything.
    Use — it opens fissured rock or compact ground ahead of the bucket; it does not separate what is already extracted.
Mounts on

Mounts on, in the manufacturer example: Morin

04 Choice

What determines the choice

  • 01 — The spacing of the bars It is the only setting on the tool, and it cannot be changed afterwards.
    It decides what stays in the bucket.
    Too close together, the soil does not go through and the sorting no longer happens; too far apart, the stones go through with it.
  • 02 — The nature of the soil Dry, sandy soil goes through the bars without effort.
    Clay or damp soil sticks, forms clods and blocks the gaps.
    On those soils, the output collapses — that is the limit to know before buying.
  • 03 — The strength of the bars The bars work in bending at every shake and at every stone.
    It is the part that breaks, and its section counts more than the capacity shown for the bucket.
  • 04 — The capacity, related to the machine A skeleton bucket is lighter than a full bucket of the same volume, but it gets loaded with stones.
    The operating weight, not the empty weight, is what counts at the end of the arm.
05 Check

What is checked before ordering

  • The class of machine Models are recorded for excavators of 0.6 to 52 t.
    That is a range of a product line, not a compatibility:
    each bucket aims at a narrow class inside that range.
  • The spacing of the bars, on your ground Describe the soil rather than choosing a dimension from a catalogue.
    It is the point where a mistake makes the tool useless.
  • The weight at the end of the arm, loaded The sorting is done by shaking, often with the arm extended.
    It is the worst case for stability.
  • The interface Coupler type and size, or pin dimensions.
    The tool is supplied with the matching plate — see the couplers.
In the same family
If the sorting has to be graded
On the interface
To go further
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