Product focus
A Caterpillar D10N bulldozer equipped with a
single shank ripper.
Doing more with
what you’ve got
By Robyn Grimsley
In addition to the large machines that have become an integral part of today’s mining and construction sites, several
specialised attachments for these machines have been developed to fulfil specific purposes on the job site, including
hydraulic breakers, rippers, grapples, and augers.
E
xcavators have long been a staple of the
earthmoving scene, first taking the form
of cable-operated machines that were the
earliest documented self-powered earthmoving
machines, and later being replaced by the
hydraulic machines we recognise today. One of
the reasons for the excavator’s status is its huge
versatility, primarily due to the wide array of
available attachments.
Although hydraulic excavators were used
in the late nineteenth century, they were
significantly different to the machines we
know today, using water rather than oil to
transmit power. In 1882, British company Sir
W.G. Armstrong & Co. produced the earliest
recorded hydraulic shovel, and in 1897, the
32
NOVEMBER 2017
Kilgore Machine Co. of Minneapolis, Minnesota,
patented the hydraulic shovel.
In the 1920s, companies began producing
gas- and oil-powered excavators mounted on
wheels and crawler tracks. Two decades later,
the hydraulically powered, truck-mounted
telescoping-boom Gradall excavator was
launched. The later 1940s and early 1950s
saw more companies developing hydraulic
excavators, which laid the foundation for a
complete revolution of the industry. Starting in
the 1950s, hydraulic excavators began to replace
cable excavators in all but a few large mining and
dredging applications.
It was only with the widespread adoption of
the modern hydraulic excavator that attachments
such as the hydraulic breaker, or hydraulic
hammer, the auger, and the grapple came into
use. Designed to be mounted on an excavator
— or wheel loader, skid steer loader, or backhoe
loader — these attachments present a larger,
more powerful alternative to handheld tools.
Today, a vast array of attachments is
available for all makes and sizes of hydraulic
excavators, including clamshells, log grapples,
rakes, rippers, shearers, packers, lifting hooks,
and hydraulic hammers.
Hydraulic breakers
Perhaps the most used, and most well known,
of the excavator attachments is the hydraulic
breaker, also known as a hydraulic hammer: a