Machinery Attachments and Implements: Main Types and Buying Considerations

The construction, housing, and infrastructure sectors are experiencing significant growth in both the private and government arenas. As a result, sales of traditional construction machinery have surged in both the new and used equipment markets. In addition to essential machines such as excavators, dozers, loaders, backhoes, and skid steers, these machines become even more versatile when purchased with compatible attachments. 

The Role of Machine Attachments

Heavy equipment attachments are specialised tools attached to construction and material handling machinery such as excavators, loaders, and skid steers. Their main goal is increased versatility, ensuring a single machine can perform multiple tasks efficiently and adapt to changing working conditions. Exchanging machinery implements increases productivity, operational speed and efficiency, reduces the need for manual labour, and ensures increased worksite safety. 

Attachments can be changed promptly without disruptions to workflow, and machines can be repurposed for different tasks. This lowers operational costs, reduces maintenance and purchase costs of other specialised machinery, provides environmental benefits with fewer pieces of equipment and jobs are finished on time. 

 

Common Machinery Attachments

Determine the type of equipment used and the right attachment for the job. Common implement types include: 

Buckets

Standard on loaders, excavators and skid steers; buckets are one of the most versatile attachments, often seen in digging, scooping, loading, trenching and grading. Digging buckets are common for construction and general excavation jobs, with protruding teeth used to break up and dig through compacted soil and clearing sites of stumps, rocks, brush and debris. 

Rock buckets go with reinforced, aggressive teeth designs, thicker wear plates, and more heft (despite being smaller) to break up solid rock, asphalt or concrete. For grading and smoothing, grading buckets are short, shallow and wide, with flat profiles used to get soil, sand and aggregate to the same shape. For more grading precision without needing to reposition equipment, switch to tilt buckets. These can tilt to 45-degree angles in each direction, ideal when working on slopes. 

Similarly, narrow and deeper trenching and V-buckets fitted with side cutters and sharp teeth offer improved precision for cable and pipe runs, without the need for backfilling. To prevent catching onto loose cables and wires or bursting existing pipes, machines used in residential areas are fitted with rounded-edge utility buckets. Other variants are skeleton buckets with integrated sieves in a rear grid design used for separating rocks from finer sediment and soil; rake riddle buckets for clearing brush and separating aggregate, and straight-edge clean-up buckets with larger volumes (similar to digging types) in finishing tasks and general material handling. 

Augers

These are heavy-duty spiralling tools used to drill holes. Attached to backhoes, skid steers or excavators, they’re used in various tasks, from foundation work and fixing fencing posts to installing electricity poles and planting trees. Available in several diameters and lengths, and either as direct drive augers for sand and loose soil, or gear-driven types for compacted rock, these are some of the more versatile machinery implements. 

Rock Breakers and Hydraulic Hammers

Often seen in demolition work, mining, quarrying and road maintenance, these hammer attachments use the machine’s robust hydraulics to pierce and break even the toughest rock surfaces. The cyclical up-and-down movement of a hydraulic-driven piston striking a chisel or tool bit provides the huge impact to demolish concrete structures, break through hard soil for foundation work, and cut and break up old asphalt. The attachments are also regularly seen in trenching applications, in the initial stages of loosening up harder ground. 

Choose hammers and breakers according to the soil type, the machine’s hydraulic capacity and size. The attachments are sold in varying sizes and weights, as high-energy types for breaking up harder rock, or high-impact rate variants when working faster in softer soils, and varying chisel and tool bit types (moil point, flat, blunt, wider chisel, etc.) for improved productivity, less bit wear and reduced strain in the machine hydraulics. The attachments are used with mini and standard excavators, skid steers, loaders, and backhoes. 

Grapples

Where there’s a need to pick up and move large or irregular objects, common construction equipment is fitted with grapples. These claw-like attachments deploy machine hydraulics to grip, lift and move materials like boulders, stumps, metals and demolition debris. The attachments are often seen in construction (positioning rebar and concrete pipes), recycling (handling scrap metal and waste), forestry and landscaping (handling timber, site clearing), and general material handling. 

Blades

These are used for earthmoving, grading and site clearing, usually attached to bulldozers, graders, excavators and wheeled or tracked loaders. Design variations mean specific uses and compatibility with different equipment. Choose shorter, straight or S-blades, with no side wings for fine aggregate in ditching and backfilling jobs; larger, curved universal or U-blades with protruding side wings in site clearing, hybrid semi-U or SU-blades when dealing with brush, stumps and other vegetation, and the precision of angle blades when pushing materials to the side. 

Main Buying Considerations

Choosing the right attachment means compatibility with the equipment, your specific project needs and finding well-built units in durable materials. Equipment compatibility involves pairing attachments in the right size and weight to ensure compliance with the machine’s maximum lifting capacity. Oversizing attachments not only leads to lower productivity and unwanted downtime but can also cause safety issues or equipment damage. Size implements and attachments according to equipment specifications for the best results. 

For equipment relying on hydraulics, also consider fluid flow rate and pressure, specifically in demanding tasks, such as breaking harder rock with hammers and breakers. This leads to the next buying consideration – sourcing attachments specifically for the job at hand. Consider the scope of the project, soil hardness, the materials you’re working with, terrain type, and safe working conditions. Decide how attachment design and size specifics, such as differences in buckets or blades, impact overall productivity and efficiency. 

Lastly, shop for machinery attachments either from the same brands as the equipment (to ensure proper fit and functionality) or from dozens of specialised local and global brands. Both build attachments in reinforced and tempered high-grade steel alloys, providing high strength and abrasion and wear resistance to last in daily use in demanding applications.