Bucket Excavator. Page: 3 of 4
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UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.
WILLIAM .I. BETTIS, OF HOUSTON, TEXAS, ASSIGNOR TO FREDERICK C. AUSTIN, OF
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.
BUCKET EXCAVATOR.Specification of Letters Patent. Patented Nov. 30, 1915.
Application filed May 9, 1910, Serial No. 560,396.To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that- I, WILLIAM I. BETTIS,
a citizen of the United States of America,
and resident of Houston, Harris county,
5 Texas, have invented a certain new and
useful Improvement in Bucket Excavators,
of which the following is a specification.
My invention relates to excavators of that
kind in which a bucket is arranged to travel
10 back and forth upon a runway which is low-
ered into the ground and which is adapted
to determine the cross sectional outline of
the ditch or excavation.
Prior to my invention the knife or blade
15 at the edge of the bucket constituted the
sole means for scraping or cutting the dirt
from the bottom of the trench, in cases where
the length of the bucket was such that the
cutting angle thereof was objectionably im-
20 paired while rounding a sharp curve in the
runway. This, of course, was found to be
entirely unsatisfactory, as the bucket by
thus not always traveling at the angle best
calculated to enable its knife or blade to
25 cut the soil would not give the best re-
sults. This is particularly so at the time the
bucket changes its course or direction of
travel at the bottom of the. runway in a cer-
tain type of machine, as at such time the
30 cutting edge of the bucket is at such an an-
gle that it is merely scraping and not cut-
ting.
The object of my invention is, therefore,
to provide an auxiliary cutter which will
a travel just ahead of the bucket, and which
will always be at the proper angle to easily
cut the soil, regardless of whether the lat-
ter is soft or hard, whereby the bucket will
always receive a full load, and whereby the
40 bucket may be of greater length and ca-
pacity, as will hereinafter more fully ap-
pear.
In the accompanying drawings-Figure 1
is a front view of the runway and bucket
45 of an excavator embodying the principles
of my invention, showing the auxiliary cut-
ter in- position just ahead of the bucket,
whereby the soil is properly cut or trimmed
from the bottom of the trench and then left
50 lying loosely to be scraped up or carried by
the bucket to the desired point of discharge.
Fig. 2 is a cross section of the said runway
on line 2-2 in Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is an enlarged
side elevation of the auxiliary cutter shown
55 in Figs. 1 and 2. Figs. 4, 5 and 6 are simi-lar views showing a different form of my
invention.
As thus illustrated, the bucket A may be
of any suitable, known or approved char-
acter, and is arranged to travel back and 60
forth on the runway B, which latter may
also be of any well known construction.
The auxiliary device has a cutter or blade
C secured to the lower end of a frame c that
is provided with wheels c' adapted to travel 65
back and forth on the said runway. The
blade C is arranged to slide up and down
in the frame c and has wheels 02 that travel
in an additional track b for this particular
purpose. The wheels 02 have axles that 70
move up and down in the slots c3 in the
frame c, whereby the blade C, which is a
part of a bail shaped frame, is free to move
relative to the said frame when the bucket
changes its course at the bottom of the ditch. 75
This track b is so shaped at the bottom of
the runway that the auxiliary cutter blade
C is always maintained at the proper
depth-that is to say, at the depth necessary
to cut through hard soil, such as clay, and 80
to thus leave the soil loose and in condition
to be taken up by the bucket.
The bucket, it will be seen, is at the proper
angle to do good cutting while it travels
down one side of the runway, and while it 85
travels up the other side thereof ; but while
it is changing its course from a downward
direction to an upward direction, it is travel-
ing at such an angle (see the dotted lines
in Fig. 1) that its knife or blade is not cut- 90
ting, strictly speaking, but is simply scrap-
ing the dirt, and therefore not giving the
best results. My improved auxiliary cutter,
however, always remains at the angle at
which it works best, so that the soil is 95
always cut and not scraped, thus increasing
the efficiency of a bucket excavator of this
general type. This is by reason of the fact
that the wheel base of the cutter is so short
that the cutting angle is not objectionably 100
changed while rounding the curve. The
bucket, owing to its much greater length of
wheel base, experiences an objectionable
change in its cutting angle while rounding
the rather sharp curve. But this does no 105
harm when the long bucket is used in com-
bination with the cutter having a short
wheel base.
In Figs. 4 to 6, the construction and op-
eration are very similar to what is shown 1101,162,676.
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Bettis, William I. Bucket Excavator., patent, November 30, 1915; [Washington D.C.]. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth858873/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.