Skid Steer Attachments:The Right Ones For The Right Job

A Skid Steer is a piece of four wheel drive machinery, commonly used on construction sites.

This machine is powered by a diesel engine, which in turn powers a hydraulic pump that operates its arms. A Skid Steer is known for its amazing maneuvering capabilities as well as for its multiple skid steer attachments. In this article we’ll go over the many uses of Skid Steers and why you may want one for your business, if you don’t have one already.

   Skid Steer Attachments: what are they’re all about

Bobcat offers the most available skid steer attachments by creating a method to connect and disconnect skid steer loader attachments more easily. Other companies have copied this technique but not completely. Because of this new method the ASV skid steer attachments made by one manufacturer could not fit that of another manufactures model.  Thus, some lines, such as Bobcat will have more attachments available.

Skid Steer Attachments

Skid loaders come with some skid steer attachments and each manufacturer carries a number of them. There are also a high number of skid steer attachments sold through the aftermarket.

The Skid Steer is commonly used as a sweeper, cleaning up debris at job sites and is undoubtedly much quicker than if a couple of workers took the time to manually sweep up.

The cement mixer is another great attachment.  There are several types available, all being engine powered. The Skid Steer is used for this when smaller batches of cement are needed.

If you live in a location where it snows heavily during the winter, you can equip your Skid steer with the snow blade attachment.  The snow blade attachment can move snow up to six inches deep, pushed straight ahead or off to the side.

   Skid Steer Attachments: Which skid steer attachments are you going to need to use the most?

 Now let’s talk about the best skid steer attachments you’ll need, what they’re for and what they can do. Most commonly used on the Skid Steer is the dirt bucket attachment and is used for shoveling dirt.

Skid Steer Attachments

An Auger is another popular skid steer attachment and is a drilling device that includes a helical screw blade to act as a screw conveyor and remove drilled out material.

A handy attachment is tree jaws, enabling your machine to arrange large plants, shrubbery and trees quickly and giving your team a break on some hard manual labor. 

Are you in to crushing rocks? Try using the rock crusher attachment and find out how fun it is to break things. Able to crush rocks and concrete, the rock crusher features a unique drive system that uses a powerful drum to crush tough materials with the ability to crush materials that stand at 23 inches, down to just 2 inches.

There are several different types of Skid Steer grapples to choose from, such as solid bucket and skeleton bucket configurations, in different sizes. 

Pallet forks are much needed for everyday use with the Skid Steers, enabling it to act like a fork lift to load and unload heavy materials and equipment.

Other common attachments are root grapples, hydraulic hammers, dozer blades and concrete claws.

Switching various skid steer loader attachments on your skid steer lets you get optimum use out of your machinery. With skid steer attachments for every season, it’s also easy to find the right equipment for the right job.

There are over a hundred different types of attachments available for the Skid Steer. Based on your type of business and what those needs are.

Skid Steer Attachments: Is it a good idea to purchase used attachments for your Skid Steers?

In many cases there will be Skid Steer attachments that you won’t use as most of the others, so it may make sense to save yourself some money and purchase a used attachment. 

There are advantages as well as disadvantages to purchasing an attachment used and whether or not you buy your attachment new or used will be based on your budget.  By increasing the versatility of your machine, you increase the amount and type of business you can do by being able to offer more services.   As always, be sure to carefully inspect these pieces before purchase. If there are warranties for the used attachment, they’re usually very short lived and unlike brand new skid steer attachments you most likely won’t be getting a one year warranty.