Giant Bucket Fills Semi Trailers Fast

Giant Bucket Fills Semi Trailers Fast GRAIN HANDLING Accessories When a local elevator mentioned to Brian Ayre that they needed something big to load a half-million bushels of corn piled on a street Ayre jumped at the challenge Within a few weeks he and his employees at Ayre Excavating had built a massive 10-yard grain bucket to mount on an 80 000-lb tracked excavator “The design we came up with holds about 210 bushels ” says Ayre “It’s a bucket 11 ft wide and about 6 ft across at the top narrowing to 4 ft wide at the bottom It dumps out the bottom through a slide controlled by two large hydraulic cylinders The operator fills the bucket by sliding it into the pile just like a front-end loader lifts and rotates it over the truck then opens the slide and empties it in just a few seconds The long arm of the excavator easily maneuvers over the top of the trailer and can fill the hopper compartments to whatever level the driver wants A typical 850 to 900-bu trailer holds 5 buckets and can be filled in 1 1/2 minutes Ayre says the secret of fast loading is the design of the bucket “It has a flat edge on the top front so it can scrape a flat surface and not damage the grain ” Ayre says “The operator can scoop from the bottom of a pile on a concrete surface or dig into a pile When the bucket is tipped back and raised up the slide to unload it is on the bottom The success of the first bucket had Ayre’s phone ringing He’s since built other sizes including 6 yds 127 bu 8 yds 175 bu 9 yds 190 bu and 11 yds 250 bu Prices range from $20 000 to $25 000 depending on size Each bucket has a standard direct pin coupler mounting is spray arc welded and can be painted to match the color of the excavator it will mount on “We’ve had great response to the idea because it’s just so efficient ” says Ayre “One elevator in Missouri used our biggest bucket to load a 1 000 000 bu pile in 60 hrs filling trucks at the rate of 18 000 bu an hour ” Ayre says a good excavator operator is the key to efficiency and truckers learn quickly where to park so the operator can dump quickly without spilling “We’ve got about 20 of these in use around the country and are getting calls fairly often from elevators who anticipate having to pile a big crop of corn and beans on the ground ” Ayre says the bucket also works well for lime and fertilizer loading Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Brian Ayre Ayre Excavating Clinton Wis ph 262 296-1826; www ayreexcavatingllc com

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