What is an excavator bucket and how do I choose the right one?
It’s likely you’ll have encountered an excavator bucket and seen them in action, but have you ever considered just how essential these attachments are for enhancing the performance of excavators – and the difference each one can make for your ability to dig and move with ease?
Drawing on our decades of experience and knowledge, we’ve put together everything you need to know about this hard-working attachment – so you can make an informed choice.
What is an excavator bucket and what are they used for?
An excavator bucket is an attachment for your excavator that makes digging, lifting and moving materials more efficient. Seen as an excavator’s primary attachment, the excavator bucket is essential for allowing you to perform earthmoving tasks safely and efficiently.
What are the different types of digger buckets?
So now you know what an excavator bucket is and what it’s made of, let’s take a look at the different excavator bucket types – and explore how you select the one that best suits your needs.
GP bucket
Designed using Finite Element Analysis in the engineering process to guarantee structural integrity and performance.
Bladed bucket
Perfect for flat bottomed trenching and utility work.
Ribbed bucket
Designed and manufactured to match machine capability.
Filleted bladed bucket
Ideal for digging near utilities.
Tilting grading bucket
Bringing greater versatility when attached to your JCB machine.
Heavy duty and extra heavy-duty bucket
Designed for heavy duty applications to improve efficiency and performance.
Grading bucket
Designed and manufactured to match machine capability.
Deep profile bucket
Featuring a range of widths to suit your needs and minimise trench back-fill.
Ditch maintenance bucket
Purpose-designed buckets to match machine capability, with drain holes to reduce weight and density during operation.
Jaw bucket
Manufactured to match machine capability, able for use as a standard digging bucket or a powerful hydraulic jaw.
Tapered ditching bucket
The ideal tool to help maintain ditches and drains, with a selection of profiles that enables shallow or steep sided ditch forming.
What are excavator buckets made of?
Wondering what type of steel are excavator buckets made of? Excavator buckets are made from high-strength steel, enabling them to withstand severe digging, impact and abrasion.
Excavator bucket sizes
Wondering how much does an excavator bucket weigh? Just as our excavators range in size and weight, so do our excavator bucket types.
Weight ranges from 13kg to over 3,101kg, capacity spans from 0.01 – 3m³, and for standard digging, grading and ditching operations, bucket widths and capabilities tend to scale with the following machine classes:
- Micro Diggers (0.8 - 1.5 Tonne): Excavator bucket widths range from 150mm – 600mm. Often used for narrow trenching.
- Mini Diggers (2.5 - 6 Tonne): Excavator bucket widths range from 230mm – 1800mm
- Midi Excavators (8 – 15 Tonne): Excavator bucket widths range from 250mm – 1830mm
- Larger Excavators (16 - 52 Tonne): Excavator bucket widths range from 457mm – 1900mm
How to choose the right excavator bucket type
At JCB, we offer a wide selection of excavator bucket types, with some being highly specialised for machinery and tasks, and others offering more broad capabilities. Generally, these digger bucket types can fit into the below categories:
- General Purpose (GP) Buckets: The most commonly used option, GP buckets are ideal for everyday digging in materials such as topsoil, clay, sand, and standard dirt. They’re engineered to maximise soil retention while ensuring a smooth, clean release.
- Heavy-Duty (HD) Buckets: Designed for tougher conditions, HD buckets perform best in compact ground, shale, and loose rock. Their robust construction includes thicker, double-skinned shells, integrated wear strips, and replaceable teeth to handle high-impact environments.
- Grading Buckets: Wide and toothless, these buckets are perfectly suited to finishing tasks such as levelling, backfilling, and shaping banks, delivering a smooth, precise result.
- Ditching Buckets: Purpose-design and manufactured to match machine capability, these buckets feature drain holes that reduce weight and density during operation.
- Trenching Buckets: Built with a narrow, deep profile, these buckets are ideal for cutting clean, accurate trenches and footing holes, particularly for utilities and drainage work.
Matching your excavator bucket to your material type
As well as matching your excavator bucket to your machine, it’s important to select the right excavator bucket for the types of materials you’re moving.
- For high density materials, including clay and dense rock: Use a smaller bucket with a smaller surface area to allow your excavator to penetrate compact earth easily. Smaller buckets keep cycle times quick and reduce fuel consumption.
- For low density materials, including topsoil and loose gravel: Use a larger-capacity bucket. Because the material is lighter, your machine can handle a larger volume without overloading its lifting capacity.
Explore JCB’s excavator bucket attachment range
Ready to choose your bucket attachment? Explore the JCB range to experience improved productivity and efficiency, while achieving better material retention. Whichever option you choose, you can expect the same JCB quality that we’re known for across all our machine and attachment ranges.
Buckets
JCB Attachments offer a variety of excavator buckets for improved productivity, efficient digging, better material retention and clean release of material to maximise the performances of your machine.
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