# Narrow excavator trenching attachments



## Joey100 (Jan 7, 2019)

I am very new to this line of work, but I am looking to help a friend with procuring a narrow attachment that would fit on a Mitsubishi ME15 excavator to dig 18 inch deep trenches as narrow as possible, just enough to lay pipes. His 12 inch wide bucket is overkill for the 1 inch pipes we are laying, and trenchers and special attachments cost more than we'd like to spend. For how long I have spent looking, I feel I am missing a key word in my searches, or no such attachments exist. A ripper blade would do what Id like, but finding one is difficult. I planned on only spending 200 dollars on a little hunk of steel but I need advice and direction. We will be dealing with thick, wet Texas clay by the way, the kind that gives a cheap trencher a hard time. Please pardon my lack of knowledge. Thanks in advance for any guidance.


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## Hoodoo Valley (Nov 14, 2006)

Welcome to the forum Joey. Maybe you could fabricate something that bolted to the side of the bucket, that could be drug.


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## pogobill (Jan 31, 2012)

Welcome Joey100. Have you tried to see if the dimensions of the bucket attachment, pin diameters etc. would match a three point hitch type of backhoe like Bradco and such?


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## PJ161 (Sep 12, 2016)

Any bucket narrower than 6 inches is only good in sandy/gravel type soil, any clay in it and most of the time you'll be digging the material out of the bucket by hand. If you have sod on top, cut the sod off and set on the other side of the trench, then set the remaining material on the opposite side, easy to backfill. New buckets are expensive, a 12" bucket for my hoe is $235, a 9" is $195. Plus, they must be made to fit your hoe, not many hoe mounts are compatible with each other, in fact, none that I know of. PJ

I didn't mention that if the top material is nice grass, lay some construction plastic on top of the grass on each side of the trench, clean up after backfilling is much easier.


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## PJ161 (Sep 12, 2016)

Oh my, I didn't look to see it was a Cat machine, a new bucket for that would probably be in the $500.00 range, maybe a little more! PJ


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