Originally Posted by Out back
Originally Posted by Dallas County
I had a loader with a 4:1 bucket, we called it a clam shell. The bucket was heavy as hell and you needed 6 hands and 3 feet to operate it. No one ever stayed on it long enough to become an expert but I could see where it would be useful. We mostly used it for site demolition activities. When you used the lower blade for grading, it was hard to see what you were doing/going because the upper bucket was in your line of site. It was very unbalanced and made anything other than rough grading tough.


You leave the bucket closed for grading and a good operator doesn't see what the blade is doing, he feels what it's doing. I don't mean to say he can do that blind, obviously he needs to see but just looking will get you that washboard effect every time. And that's another plus, to using a loader bucket, it's easier to float and grade when you get used to it.


You might use the bucket to grade if that's all you have, but eventually it fills up with dirt and becomes inefficient. You cant roll the material with a bucket either. When I said it blocked your line of site I wasn't talking about the grade line, I'm literally talking about what's in front of you, like your rodman. But hell, now everyone uses machine control so Stevie Wonder could blue top.


not sure what the best way to handle them is but they shouldnt be on tv and gettn married and raisin kids