US3621594A

US3621594A - Cutting edge for excavating devices

Info

Publication number: US3621594A
Application number: US798953A
Authority: US
Inventors: Frederick C Hahn; Robert K Emrich
Original assignee: Esco Corp
Current assignee: Esco Corp
Priority date: 1969-02-13
Filing date: 1969-02-13
Publication date: 1971-11-23
Anticipated expiration: 1988-11-23
Also published as: ES376518A1; DE2006657C3; DE2006657B2; JPS502924B1; BR7016703D0; BE745621A; DE2006657A1; FR2035317A5; GB1292795A

Abstract

AN EXCAVATING DEVICE SCOOP WHEREIN THE LIP IS EQUIPPED WITH FORWARDLY EXTENDING EXCAVATING TEETH WHICH ADDITIONALLY SERVE TO CONFINE WEAR SHROUNDS.

Description

Nov. 23, 1am F HAHN ETAL $621,594

CUTTING EDGE FOR EXCAVATING DEVICE Filed Feb. 13. 1969 4 Sheets-Sheet l Nov. 23, 1971 HAHN ETAL 3,621,594

CUTTING EDGE FOR EXCAVATING DEVICE Filed Feb. 13, 1969 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 23, 1971 F. c. HAHN ETAL 62L594 CUTTING EDGE FOR EXCAVATING DEVICE Filed Feb. 13. 1969 4 Sheets-Sheet 5 INVHNTURS m ma Km Ewe/(Z26 m 5 59 54a 34/ a m, Maw/0g NOV. 23, 1971 HAHN ETAL $621,594

CUTTING EDGE FOR EXCAVATING DEVICE Filed Feb. 13, 1969 4 Shoots-Shoot A United States Patent O US. Cl. 37-141 2 Claims W I a um ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOS BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to excavating devices used in earth moving, earth working, and the like. The term scoop is used in its generic sense herein and relates to such varied elements as front end loaders (used illustratively herein) buckets, dippers, etc. Such elements can be used to scrape or penetrate the ground and, if desired, relocate the earth to another site. As such, these scoops are provided with forwardly facing lips (as in the direction of element movement during normal ground engagement), and this term again is used in its generic sense referring to both horizontally elongated and generally vertically elongated edges, whether they be on the floor or bottom of the scoop or on sides or wings thereof. Still further, the scoops are equipped with forwardly projecting tooth members to facilitate penetrating the earth and this term also is used generically, referring (as illustrated) to such forms as two piece teeth wherein adapters are releasably connected to the scoop and in turn support removably mounted points. Other tooth members may include such known structures as single piece teeth wherein a wedge-shaped point has a rearwardly facing socket mounted on a nose which projects forwardly from and integrally with the scoop lip.

The prior art has :made use of shroud both for the bottom wall lip in between the forwardly projecting tooth members and also along the lips of the wings. In most cases, these shrouds or wear pieces have been welded to the associated lips. In other cases, there was no provision for wear protection and replacement when the lip was worn out. In still other cases, the lips were hard faced, requiring extensive work for replacement. None of the above procedures minimized a lip maintenance. All required the use of burning or welding to maintain the lips in a condition whereby the given piece of earth mov ing equipment could be operated. With larger units it was frequently necessary for the user to own several units for one machine so that they could be rotated from use on the machine to the maintenance shop.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The inventive concept for minimizing lip maintenance includes the following aspects: 1) all areas of the lip and adjoining parts which normally encounter high rates of wear due to contact with the material being moved or excavated are protected by wear and cutting edges. The only wear which occurs on the lip and adjoining parts is that associated with contact with the wear and cutting edges, and this is kept to a minimum through close fit of the edges to the lip in order to prevent movement of the edges over the lip; (2) the lips are especially adapted for use of wear and cutting edges. Unlike present practice where lips are constructed with some built-in wear material to which may be added additional wear metal through the use of shrouds, these lips usually contain no 3,621,594 Patented Nov. 23, 11971 ice extra wear metal; (3) the edges are mechanically held in place by quick-change locking devices requiring only seconds for engagement or disengagement; and (4) wear edges and cutting edges are of a segmented construction, i.e., small edge segments of the overall whole are replaceable without the necessity of removing all or large portions of this whole.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING The invention is described in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, in which- FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a six-yard front end loader bucket constructed and equipped according to the teachings of this invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic sectional view of the bucket of FIG. 1 featuring the cut-back wings;

FIGS. 3-5 are fragmentary perspective views of the left-hand corner of the bucket of FIG. 1 with certain of the replaceable elements being shown in different stages of installation;

FIG. 6 is a longitudinal, i.e. fore-and-aft sectional view on enlarged scale such as would be seen along the sight line 66 of FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a fragmentary sectional view taken along the line 7-7 of FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is a fragmentary sectional view of a modified form of the invention and corresponds essentially to the showing in FIG. 7;

FIG. 9 is a longitudinal sectional view of a modified form of the inevntion and corresponds essentially to the showing in FIG. 6;

FIG. 10 is a transverse sectional view taken along the line 1010 of FIG. 9;

FIG. 11 is a fragmentary top plan view of the scoop of FIG. 9';

FIG. 12 is a fragmentary perspective view of the loader of FIG. 1 but seen from the rear right, and showing the corner adapters and wing shrouds;

FIGS. 13 and 14 are fragmentary perspective views of corner adapters;

FIG. 15 is a fragmentary top plan view of a modified form of scoop;

FIG. 16 is a fragmentary perspective view of the embodiment of FIGS. 9-11; and

FIG. 17 is an exploded fragmentary perspective view of the embodiment of FIGS. 9-11.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring now to FIG. 1, the numeral 30 designates generally a front end loader bucket or scoop. As indicated previously, the invention is useful in conjunction with various lip-equipped devices such as shovel clippers, drag lines, wheel lips, hoe dippers, front end loaders and the like. In FIG. 1, it is seen that a scoop center 31 and right-hand and left-hand wings 32 and 33, respectively, are Welded together into the scoop 30 as the basic scoop structural member. The bucket 30 adjacent its forward lower end is equipped with a lip generally designated 34 (better seen in FIG. 3). This lip 34 is provided with hearing pads as at 35 and slots as at 36 for the various attachments and locking devices. The wings as at 33 in FIG. 2 are cut back as at 33a relative to the dashed line 30' which is the usual forward edge of the wings.

In FIG. 3, it will be seen that a workman 37 is in the process of installing a shroud 38 on the lip 34. The shroud may have a variety of cross-sectional configurations, i.e., V-shaped, U-shaped, L-shaped, etc., as can be appreciated from a consideration of FIGS. 6 and 9.

Once the shroud 38 is positioned as seen in FIGS. 3-5 an adapter 39 is installed in position by the workman 37 in the fashion seen in FIG. 4. The adapter 39 is seen to have rearwardly extending legs 40 and 41 with these legs being apertured as at 42 for the receipt of a locking means generally designated 43. In the illustration given, the locking means 43 includes a fluted wedge and spool as can be appreciated from a comparison of FIGS. and 6. Alternatively, a C-clamp can be employed. At its forward end, the adapter 39 is equipped with a generally wedge-shaped nose portion 44 (see (FIG. 6) on which is installed a socket-equipped point 45. The nose 44 and point 45 are held together by means of a locking key mechanism des ignated 46 (see FIG. 5).

In the illustration given in FIG. 4, the side walls of the adapter 39 are recessed as at 47 so as to conform to the outer contour of the adjacent shrouds 38 and confine the same in place. Thus, it is unnecessary to provide any welding or lock means to positively connect the shroud 38 to the lip 34.

From the foregoing, it will be noted that the shrouds or wear pieces 38 are actually part of the basic lip cross section and thereby eliminated extra weight, loading obstructions, and digging efficiency losses. Also, because the wear-resistant elements are added to a basic lip, the user can retailor his scoop to include different styles of teeth or a replaceable leading edge without any teeth but with the shrouds held by holders to make the scoop a more universal tool. The lip shroud 38 is effectively extended by plate shrouds as at 48 in FIGS. 6 and 7 which also fit into the recesses 47. (The plate shrouds being omitted from the showings in FIGS. 3-5 for clearness of pieturization.) These plates overlie the bottom wall 31a of the scoop, somewhat rearward of the lip 34.

In addition to the method of securement seen in FIGS. 1-7, the form illustrated in FIG. 8 is useful. In FIG. 8, the bottom wall of the center 31, scoop 30 is also designated by the reference numeral 31a and this is somewhat rearward of the lip 34 and over the slight bearing pads 35. The area 25 is subjected to extreme wear in use. As an alternative to the plate shroud 48, we employ an augmented shroud designated 148. It is seen that there is a dissimilar material 149 sandwiched between the bottom wall 31a and the shroud 148, this being designated 149. For example, this can take the form of a resilient flexible material such as rubber for improving shock resistance. Alternatively, the wall 31a and the

shroud

48 or 148 may be spaced apart with asbestos in place of the rubber to provide a thermal barrier for high temperature operation. In certain cases, an air gap may be introduced between the inside surfaces of the lip and plate shrouds and the lip properthis serving to effectively increase the gradient between the ambient temperature and the basic structural lip temperature. Exemplary of high temperature operation is moving hot slag where front end loaders mounted on crawler type machines have been found to be the most economical and best suited to handling slag in the 700 to 1100 F. range. The high ambient temperatures created, however, tended to take the temper out of the steel in the bucket and reduce its service life accordingly. Through the modification just described, this drawback has been eliminated.

In the practice of the invention, generally, it is seen that there is provided a rearwardly facing bearing surface on the tooth member which cooperates with a forwardly facing bearing surface on the shroud. These surfaces, if not already in bearing engagement will quickly move thereinto when a force tending to dislodge the shroud is applied to them. Normally, however, the parts are structured so that this bearing engagement does exist and therefore the shroud is removably locked in place on the scoop by the tooth member and without the need of welding or the like. In the illustration given in FIGS. 1-8, this locking engagement is achieved through the provision of the recess 47 on the side of the adapter. Because of the grooves or recesses 47 extending the entire length of the adapter, wear plates are readily installed (and equally readily removable) to completely armor the inside top face of the lip from the ravages of wear. l e

In the modification seen in FIGS. 9 through 11, the tooth member is structured somewhat differently in that a nose-providing element 239 is provided integral with and projecting forwardly from the scoop bottom wall 31a as if the adapter 39 of FIG. 4 were cast integrally with the scoop. The nose portion of the element 239 is designated again by the numeral 44 and this receives a wear point 45. The wear point 45 is equipped with a wedge-shaped socket 45a extending forwardly into the point from the rear thereof. The socket-defining walls terminate at the rear as at 4512 and these walls laterally overlap the forward end surfaces 238a of the shroud 238 to again confine the same in place in a fashion analogous to that seen in FIGS. 1-8. In the FIGS. 9-11 showing however, the shroud 238 is held on by a butt fit between the extreme sides of the shroud and the back edge 45b of the tooth point 45. The shroud 238 in FIG. 11 has an arcuate leading edge giving the bucket a scalloped appearancethe'extreme sides 238a being further forward than the center part 238b, as seen in FIG. 11. No mechanical locking devices other than the standard locking device 46 is utilized.

In the sectional view seen in FIG. 10, a dovetail or enlarged edge is seen as at 238a to facilitate holding the shroud 238 in place. A corresponding arrangement can be utilized relative to the center shrouds as seen in FIG. 9. There the shroud 238 is seen to be equipped with a rearwardly-extending tongue 250 and the scoop bottom wall recessed correspondingly as at 251.

Through the practice of the invention, a number of advantages accrue, particularly obtaining longer and more effective Working life without increasing the thickness of the front top surface of the lip which ordinarily would add weight, create additional obstructions for the material to load over, and shortening the effective digging and penetrating distance of the tooth member tip from.

the leading edge of the scoop.

More specifically, the inventive arrangement allows the elimination of a large part of the normally required welding maintenanceutilizing mechanical connections in stead. Also, the segmented construction of the edges results in individual pieces small enough to make it feasible to discard them when worn out rather than to rebuild them through the expensive and laborious process of welding. It is now practical to maintain a more efficient digging configuration because the low cost in terms of time and labor for installation makes it reasonable to use edges with less wear metal and a correspondingly sharper configuration than was previously considered reasonable. Also, the lack of extra wear metal on the lip itself makes it possible to further enhance digging configuration. Im-

proved output of the scoop then results from its superior Referring now to FIG. 12, a corner adapter generally designated 52 is seen. The adapter 52 has three legs. One leg 53 is clearly seen in FIG. 12. A second leg 54 is seen in FIG. 3 and is on the inboard side of the wing 33. The

third leg 55 is the bottom leg. Thus, the legs of the adapter" 52 flank the bottom wall of the scoop as well as each wing. The adapter 52 is removably fixed to the wing 32 (as in FIG. 10) by means of a locking device 56. The wing shroud 57 is seen to overlie the wing lip (masked in FIG. 12) but again is held in place by means of coacting bearing surfaces in the area designated 58 in FIG. 12,"

Le, a rearwardly facing bearing surface on the tang 59 of the wing shroud 57 and a forwardly facing bearing surface on the tang 60 of the lip 32. The forward or lower portion of the wing shroud 57 is equipped with a knoblike projection or tang 61 (seen only in FIG. 13). This mates with a corresponding recess or groove in the rearward or upwardly facing surface of the corner adapter 52. Additionally, FIG. 13 shows a protrusion 62 extending forwardly from the lip 34 which mates with a corresponding recess in the adapter 52. A similar projection 63 can be seen in FIG. 3 for the purpose of accommodating the mounting of the center adapters 39. It will be noted in FIG. 12 that the corner adapter 52 is recessed as at 64 in the same fashion as the center adapters 39. Recesses 55 are provided on both sides of each corner adapter 52 but only one is used.

In the embodiment of FIGS. 1 and 12, it is possible also to have the outboard mounting of the corner tooth as illustrated by the mounting of the point 45 in FIG. 12. According to the invention, the corner teeth are mounted in an extreme outboard configuration thereby cutting clearance from the sides, reducing wear, and at the same time improving the penetrating and breakout efliciency of the corner lip area. As the corner tooth is located closer to the center of the lip (as in conventional designs), it has less capability of directing the material as it breaks up into the bucket or outside the bucket in the event it is directed in that manner due to its shape. For example, a rock which may have the tendency to go either inside or outside of the bucket is now properly guided by the extreme comer-mounted tooth without markedly slowing the loading action. If a rock or group of rocks are allowed to ball up in the lip wing area, this slows down the loading action and actually retards the ability of the bucket to get a full load. In essence, we attempt to at least have the longitudinal center line of the tooth on the longitudinal center line of the wing-the tooth having a significantly greater width than the wing whereby a substantial outboard mounting is achieved.

The invention also has the advantage of the cut-back sides or wings on the bucket which is made possible by shrouds on the lip wing. The shrouds have the high strength-to-weight ratio available in cast products. As can be seen in FIG. 2, there is a substantial recessing of the wings relative to that normally designed into buckets and this permits more horizontal movement into the material to be excavated and enhances the ability of the bucket to penetrate-tending to improve the amount of material that is loaded on the average in each pass.

FIG. shows a modification made available through the practice of the invention. As mentioned previously, we can retailor the front edge of the lift to different configurations. For example, in FIG. 15, the straightacross type of shroud employed in the FIG. 1 arrangement has been replaced with shrouds as at 338-342 which build the lip into a V configuration.

We claim:

1. An excavating scoop having a forwardly projecting lip, a plurality of spaced-apart excavating teeth releasably mounted on said scoop and projecting forwardly of said lip, and a plurality of shrouds mounted on said scoop between said teeth and extending around said lip to protect the same, each of said teeth having a portion overlapping an adjacent shroud, said overlapping portions constituting the sole means to hold said shrouds in place, said lip being flanked by upwardly extending side walls terminating in a generally upwardly and forwardly facing wing edge, a wing shroud on each wing edge, an adapter mounted on said scoop straddling said lip and engaging said wing shroud, and a projection and recess interconnecting each wing shroud with each of said wing edge and the adapter associated therewith and arranged so that said adapter must be removed before removing said wing shroud.

2. The structure of claim 11 in which said adapter includes a unitary body having a forwardly facing nose and three rearwardly extending legs, two of said legs being positioned above a third of said legs, said two legs being spaced from said third leg to straddle said lip, said two legs being spaced from each other to straddle one of said side walls, aligned openings in said two legs for the receipt of means for securing said adapter to said one side wall.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,796,737 3/1931 Van Buskirk 37-142 1,803,654 5/1931 Ronk 37-141 X 1,843,205 2/1932 Clark 37-141 1,920,873 8/ 1933 MacFadyen 37-141 3,001,591 9/1961 Johnson 37-142 X 1,340,385 5/1920 Edmondson 37-142 1,815,649 7/1931 Edmunds 37-142 2,229,267 1/ 1941 Younie 37-142 2,991,569 7/1961 Launder 37-142 R 3,281,972 11/1966 Kerestes 37-141 3,388,488 6/1968 Duplessis 37-142 3,456,370 7/1969 Gilbertson 37-141 3,462,861 8/1969 Kampert 37-142 3,465,833 9/1969 Lutz 37-141 X 3,478,449 11/1969 Baker 37-141 3,497,973 3/1970 Campbell 37-141 FOREIGN PATENTS 490,651 1953 Canada 37-142 988,844 1965 Great Britain 37-118 EDGAR S. BURR, Primary Examiner US, Cl. X3. 37 142