Hi-Cap Multi-Ripper a rock-cutting bucket alternative to hammers and trenchers

Updated May 15, 2019

Leahcmrb

Billing it as an alternative to trenchers, hammers and blasting, Leading Edge Attachments says its “secret weapon” allows contractors to slice through the likes of limestone, blue shale, caliche and coral—with only a bucket.

The Hi-Cap Multi-Ripper Bucket is a low-cost option for utilities contractors looking for a simpler approach to cutting through rock or frost, Leading Edge says. The bucket features staggered ripper teeth that “fracture the substrate in sequential order,” explains Leading Edge’s Lee Horton.

“No two ripper teeth align with each other, resulting in the maximum breakout force being applied sequentially to each tooth,” Horton says.

Plus, no extra hydraulics are required, adds Duke Arnold, manufacturers’ representative for the Southwestern region at Leading Edge.

Leading Edge Hi Cap Multi Ripper Bucket

“Its power comes from the excavator or backhoe curl function, the downward force and the crowd force,” Arnold says. Horton adds that because the distance from the excavator stick pivot to the Hi-Cap bucket’s tooth tips is shorter than a standard bucket, the force on each tooth tip is multiplied “so that the substrate is broken out by each individual tooth’s ripping action.”

The company says the resulting trench looks like it was cut by a trencher with a flat bottom and flat sides. And because of the way that the ripper teeth are mounted onto the bucket, one excavator and operator can trench and scoop, performing the work normally done by two.

The bucket is available for skid-steer loaders and for excavators from 6,000 pounds all the way up to 300,000 pounds.

The company notes that the “bucket [by itself] may not be appropriate for every utility rock trenching situation…and size and power of the host excavator also plays a major role.”

For more information on the Hi-Cap Multi-Ripper Bucket, call Melissa at 508-829-4855, or toll free at 866-928-5800. Or visit digrock.com