Heavy bucket teeth and their role play
Heavy equipment industry is the ultimate achievement of mechanical engineering do far, if not of all time. The most salient feature of this sector is its dependence on other ancillary markets like small parts industry. Once we delve in to the knowhow of the bulky tools which are supposed to withstand the load of tonnages of goods; it is needless to say that little to great extent of damage the equipments can undergo. The most common structural element of every such bulk units is undoubtedly the cutting-edge teeth. Teeth, as it can be presumed, are pointed ends or rather ‘modified ends’ used in shovels or heavy duty buckets such as excavation bucket that provide the much-needed sting to the excavation or other groundwork tools.
Evolution of teeth built:
No matter how much adjunct the term ‘teeth’ sound with the modern time industrial advancement; their use is much primitive that goes a long way back during the dawn of industry concept- the Industrial Revolution. Paul’s Spinning Engine or Otis Steam shovel are some earliest of manufacturing tools that evidently possessed teeth structure. Befitting to the era sans technological brilliance, the Steam Shovel had unit piece design that was forged with the edge of the shovel. Intriguingly enough, the aforementioned Spinning Engine teeth, instead of pointing from center of the wheel along the radius, they turned little to form a shape like the bottom of ‘L’. The most ‘teething problem’ with these predecessors of later time ‘crimp on’ tooth was the rigorous maintenance by cutting the blunt lip and re-profiling to keep its razor sharp scathing action. This degree of ‘shape-up’ work was due to the fact that all the teeth were, back then, riveted to the ends of shovels, dredgers or buckets and thus manufacturing technique itself rendered the teeth blunt. Later as electric arc was incepted; it brought about immense improvement on the on the maintenance front. Much after this, in decades of 70’s & 80’s, flex-pin with its coming-of-age shapes like helical thread-like; diamond pin arrangement or quadrilateral design propagated the productivity by leaps and bounds. Jump cut to 21st century; the IT revolution ushers in computed designs for flawless self-sharpening teeth which coined the idea of ‘hammerless teeth’.
Teeth variation and impact on ‘buckets’:
Unlike the common household pail that is used to contain thing(s); heavy equipment bucket’s role is not confined to keeping things. Rather the buckets are of a wide range of shapes and sizes catering to the needs e.g. dredging; moving earth; digging mines or helping to douse fire as happens in helicopter fire fight. The real boost in the teeth use for bucket came in the form of Track loader by Hough followed by refined or seminal designs of two-part forged/cast or fabricated teeth group. Their wedge shaped base was simple in design and can easily be replaced with hammer and chisel which also eliminated the need of expert craftsman. The cost for maintenance, ergo, was reduced largely giving upstart diggers a breather in the market.