Abstract:
A bucket for use with a skid steer includes a forwardly extending blade having a V-shaped front edge. Rotation of the bucket allows the user to control the depth of the cut, and the skid steer vehicle can readily cut swales in tight spaces using this bucket, simply by driving forward with the bucket arranged at the desired angle.

Description:
[0001]     This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/611,727 filed Sep. 21, 2004, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     The present invention relates to a bucket to be used on a skid steer. More particularly, it relates to a bucket with a tapered or angled front end, which is useful for cutting a swale or a drainage ditch.  
         [0003]     Houses are being built very close together, such that digging a drainage ditch between the houses becomes very difficult due to the limited room available for maneuvering a piece of equipment. A typical excavator with a swing boom requires too much room to be able to operate in the very narrow spaces between many of these homes. The option of hand digging these drainage ditches is not only costly and time consuming; it also results in less than satisfactory results.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0004]     The present invention provides a bucket designed to be easily mounted to a skid steer, which makes it highly maneuverable and very compact, such that a drainage ditch can be dug very quickly, even in very tight quarters where other mechanized forms of ditch digging are not practical.  
         [0005]     In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the bucket has a tapered front end with straight sides, which intersect to form a “V”. This feature makes the bucket very efficient in digging into the ground, much like a plow. The bucket also may be used to hold and move dirt from one place to another.  
         [0006]     Adjacent the vertical back plate (which contains the standard mounting arrangement for mounting to a skid steer), the rear of the bucket has a flat bottom portion, such that the bucket can sit flat on the ground. This feature has several advantages. First, it facilitates the hook up of the bucket to the skid steer. The skid steer simply drives up behind the bucket which is resting on the flat bottom portion lying at the correct orientation for the hook up. It also allows for easier transport of the bucket on the flat bed of a truck, for instance, as the bucket sits flat and stable on the floor of the truck bed and does not rock back and forth or side-to-side. The flat bottom portion of the bucket also allows this portion of the bucket to be used for smoothing out (evening out) the dirt in a maneuver known in the industry as back-dragging. The bucket is positioned with the flat portion of the bucket flat on the ground (or parallel to the ground at a desired height above the ground). The bucket is then dragged backwards, dragging along the dirt, in order to fill any holes and smooth out the ground.  
         [0007]     The skid steer permits the operator both to raise and lower the bucket and to pivot the bucket along a left-to-right horizontal axis. This feature permits the operator to adjust the depth of the ditch he wishes to cut from zero depth (by having the tip of the “V” on the front end of the bucket right at ground level), to the maximum depth the bucket can allow (which can be defined as the “depth” of the “V”) in a single cut, and do so while moving forward so he can clearly see what he is doing. The operator can also adjust the “pitch” or angle of each side of the swale by moving the skid steer up or down the sides of the swale in successive cuts of the swale. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0008]      FIG. 1  is a perspective view of a skid steer with a bucket made in accordance with the present invention;  
         [0009]      FIG. 2  is a side view of the skid steer and bucket of  FIG. 1 ;  
         [0010]      FIG. 3  is an enlarged, partially broken away side view of the skid steer and bucket of  FIG. 2 , with the bucket just barely touching the ground;  
         [0011]      FIG. 4  is the same view as  FIG. 3  but with the bucket pivoted such that the “V” cuts a deeper swale;  
         [0012]      FIG. 5  is the same view as  FIG. 4  but with the bucket pivoted even more, such that the “V” cuts at its maximum depth in a single pass;  
         [0013]      FIG. 6  is the same view as  FIG. 5  but with the bucket once again pivoted even more, such that the “V” is facing “backwards” toward the skid steer and the bucket is just pushing dirt forward without cutting into the ground;  
         [0014]      FIG. 7  is a rear perspective view of the bucket of  FIG. 1 , showing the back plate with the skid steer mounting arrangement;  
         [0015]      FIG. 8  is a schematic of the skid steer (represented by its front tires) cutting a pass on the desired swale; and  
         [0016]      FIG. 9  is the same view as in  FIG. 8 , but with the skid steer offset from the centerline of the previous cut of the swale, with the resulting new cut of the swale shown in phantom. 
     
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
       [0017]      FIGS. 1-9  show an example of a bucket  10  for a skid steer  12  made in accordance with the present invention.  
         [0018]     As may be appreciated from  FIGS. 1 and 7 , the bucket  10  includes a vertical, flat back wall  14  to which the skid steer mounting attachments  16  are secured, as is well known in the industry. It also has two vertical, flat end walls  18 , and a horizontal flat bottom wall portion  20 . The bucket  10  also has a V-shaped bottom wall portion that projects forward from the flat bottom wall portion  20 . The V-shaped bottom wall portion is made up of three triangle-shaped plates  22 A,  22 B,  22 C. The central triangular plate  22 A connects to the front of the bottom wall portion  20  and to the two side triangular plates  22 B,  22 C. The left and right side triangular plates connect to the central triangular plate  22 A and to the fronts of the respective left and right end walls  18 , projecting forward and forming the V-shaped front edge of the bucket. The three plates  22 A,  22 B,  22 C meet at the “bottom of the V”  24 .  
         [0019]     The flat bottom wall portion  20  defines a length dimension “L” (which is its long dimension and is roughly equal to the width of the skid steer, but which may be made longer or shorter depending on the desired overall width of the bucket  10 ), and a depth dimension D (See  FIG. 7 ). This depth dimension “D” may be made deeper or shallower depending on personal preference and the capabilities of the skid steer. The deeper this dimension “D”, the more dirt the bucket  10  can carry, and the more stable is the bucket  10  to resisting back forth rocking motion during transport in a truck bed, for instance.  
         [0020]     Of course, the central triangular plate  22 A may be coplanar with the bottom wall  20 , which would effectively extend the “depth” of the bottom wall  20  for the purposes of stability against back and forth rocking motion during transport. However, as best appreciated in  FIGS. 2 and 3 , in this preferred embodiment the middle plate  22 A is at a slight tilt relative to this bottom wall  20 , since the weight distribution of the bucket  10  is likely to keep the bucket  10  resting on the bottom wall  20  under all but the most extreme acceleration or braking action.  
         [0021]     The flat bottom wall  20  also provides a lateral element of stability to the bucket  10  which prevents the bucket  10  from teetering from side to side when it is lying on the ground or in the bed of a truck, or during transport. This feature is particularly useful when attaching the bucket  10  to a skid steer  12 . As the bucket  10  lies on the ground (or the bed of a truck), the bottom wall  20  keeps the bucket  10  properly oriented so that a skid steer  12  can simply be driven up to attach it to the bucket  10 . Without this flat wall portion  20 , the bucket  10  would tend to settle on one side, coming to rest on either one of the triangular plates  22 B or  22 C, presenting a tilted angle for the mounting of the bucket to the skid steer. In that case, the bucket would have to be leveled and chocked before the skid steer could hook up to it, thus requiring additional labor.  
         [0022]      FIG. 3  shows the bucket  10  in operation where the skid steer  12  has lowered the bucket  10  so the bottom of the “V”  24  is just at ground level. Forward travel in this position results in a smoothing out of the ground.  
         [0023]      FIG. 4  shows the bucket  10  when it has been rotated clockwise (rotated around the horizontal axis of rotation  26  between the skid steer  12  and the bucket  10 ) such that the bottom of the “V”  24  is digging into the ground to dig a drainage ditch with a “V” shaped profile such as the ditch  28  of  FIG. 8 . Any excess dirt being removed from the ditch is scooped up inside the bucket  10 .  
         [0024]     Further rotation of the bucket  12  around the axis of rotation  26  results in a progressively deeper ditch until the maximum depth is reached as is shown in  FIG. 5 . In this particular embodiment, the vertical distance from the bottom of the “V” to the top is one foot, so that is the maximum depth that can be cut with this blade. The bottom of the “V”  24  is at its maximum depth (while the end walls  18  are at, or just slightly below, the ground level). The resulting drainage ditch has the same “V” shaped profile as shown in  FIG. 8 , except that the ditch itself is deeper, and the sides of the drainage ditch are steeper. Once again, any excess dirt being cut out to dig the ditch is scooped up inside the bucket  10 .  
         [0025]     Continued rotation of the bucket  12  around the axis of rotation  26  results in a progressively shallower ditch until, as shown in  FIG. 6 , bottom of the “V”  24  is once again at ground level, but now the bucket  10  is being dragged forward. In this position, any excess dirt only gets scraped forward by the bucket  10 ; it is not scooped up into the bucket  10 .  
         [0026]     Therefore, as long as the bucket  10  is being pushed forward by the skid steer  12 , the bucket  10  is digging a ditch and any excess dirt is scooped up into the bucket  10 . Rotation of the bucket  10  until it is being dragged forward by the skid steer  12  results in scraping or smoothing of the ditch, with any excess dirt getting pushed along to fill any voids or holes instead of getting scooped inside the bucket  10 .  
         [0027]      FIG. 8  depicts the profile of a ditch  28  which might be achieved using the bucket  10  (represented by the two front tires  30  of the skid steer  12 ) after one or more passes over the ground. It is sometimes desirable to dig a ditch  32  (See  FIG. 9 ) with one side (one bank) which is steeper and higher than the other side. This feature is desirable, for instance, when two homes are side side-by-side and one of them is at a higher elevation that the other one.  
         [0028]     It is possible to achieve this “steeper on one side” effect using the bucket  10 . After a first cut as shown in  FIG. 8  (resulting in a symmetrical ditch  28 ), the skid steer  12  is repositioned so that it is no longer riding along the centerline of the ditch  28  (as depicted by the tires  30  in  FIG. 8 ) but rather so that its tires  30  are offset from the centerline, with one set of tires  30  further up the side of the ditch  28  than the other set of tires  30 . This will tilt the bucket  10  so that one plate  22 C of the “V” shaped front wall of the bucket  10  is at a steeper angle and the other plate  22 B is at a shallower angle, resulting in the new ditch  32  (shown in phantom in  FIG. 9 ).  
         [0029]     While the embodiment described above shows an embodiment for a drainage ditch bucket, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that modifications may be made to the embodiment described above without departing from the scope of the present invention.