Excavator Attachments

Excavator attachments: what this collection covers

This page lists 31 excavator attachments from three manufacturers — Geith (16 products), Amulet (8) and Star Industries (7) — spanning $289 to $21,900. The catalog sorts into five working groups. Buckets: Geith Heavy Duty Excavator Digging Bucket, Geith Excavator Heavy Duty Grading Bucket, Geith Mini Excavator Heavy Duty Grading Bucket, Geith MX Digging Bucket for Mini Excavators, plus Amulet and Geith tilt buckets. Gripping tools: the Geith Mechanical Excavator Grapple, five Geith thumb families, and the Amulet PowerClamp and PowerBrute hydraulic thumbs. Ground engaging tools: Geith Excavator Ripper Tooth and the Amulet Excavator Ripper – Severe-Duty. Handling tools: Geith Excavator Pallet Forks and the Amulet HoeMate Multi-Tine Rake. Drilling: Star Industries auger assemblies, rock, T-post and single flight bits, a fixed length shaft extension, and auger and bucket racks. Couplers and adapters — the Geith Excavator Hydraulic Quick Coupler, Geith Excavator Tilt Coupler, Amulet Mini-Hitch manual quick coupler and the Amulet XBOOM excavator-to-skid-steer adapter system — are what let one carrier run more than one of them.

Weight class, pin sizes and excavator mounting brackets

Fitment comes down to four variables: machine operating weight, dipper (stick) pin diameter and link geometry, coupler style, and available auxiliary hydraulic flow and pressure. The manufacturer tables on these products are built around exactly those figures. The Geith Progressive Linkage Hydraulic Thumb lists the PL065 for machines of 24,251–30,865 lb (11.0–14.0 tons) with a 65 mm (2.6 in) standard dipper pin, and the PL070 for 30,865–39,683 lb (14.0–18.0 ton) machines with a 70 mm (2.8 in) pin, at a maximum operating pressure of 172.5 bar (2,500 psi). The Geith Auto-Klamp Mechanical Thumb lists model AK12-15A for 16,000–32,000 lb (7.3–14.5 ton) machines, 381 mm (15 in) wide and 334 kg (735 lb). The Geith Mechanical Excavator Grapple is designed for 18–41 ton excavators.

Mount style matters as much as size. The Amulet High Capacity Excavator Tilt Bucket alone is offered in 36 configurations across 9 excavator weight classes (3–5 ton through 30–40 ton), with four mount options: blank weld-on plate, wedge-style coupler, pin-on / pin-grabber style coupler, and Wain-Roy / cross-pin style coupler. If you are shopping for excavator mounting brackets, that is the real decision — weld-on plate versus a coupler interface. A weld-on plate costs less and is rigid, but ties the tool to one machine and one welder's workmanship. A coupler lets you change tools in minutes and keeps resale open, at the price of a little added reach and tip weight. ISO 13031 sets safety requirements for quick couplers on earth-moving machinery, including attachment retention, and is worth asking about when you compare coupler-mounted tools.

Excavator claw, thumb and clamp: which grip you actually need

"Excavator claw" and "digger thumb grab" usually describe two different tools. A thumb works against the bucket, giving you an excavator bucket with thumb combination that grips brush, pipe, demolition debris and rock while keeping full digging ability. A grapple replaces the bucket with jaws that close on themselves — better for sorting, loading and waste handling, but it does not dig. Within thumbs, a main pin design mounts at the bucket pivot and is simple and strong; a progressive linkage design holds the tips more parallel to the bucket through the full swing, which helps on round and irregular loads.

Grading bucket for mini excavator, digging buckets and rippers

A grading bucket for a mini excavator is wide, toothless and shallow with a straight cutting edge — built for finish grading, backfill, slope and ditch work rather than trenching. A digging bucket is narrow and deep with teeth, so it concentrates breakout force into a small area. This collection carries both in mini and full-size form: the Geith Mini Excavator Heavy Duty Grading Bucket and Geith MX Digging Bucket for Mini Excavators, plus the Geith Excavator Heavy Duty Grading Bucket and Geith Heavy Duty Excavator Digging Bucket. Tilt buckets — the Amulet Excavator Tilt Bucket, Amulet High Capacity Tilt Bucket and the Geith Hydraulic Angle Excavator Tilt Bucket (Single Ram) — add side-to-side tilt so you can cut a crown or a batter slope without repositioning the machine, which is where most of the time savings come from on roadside and utility work.

The most common buying mistake is going too wide. A bucket sized past the machine's breakout capability just slows cycles and unloads the tracks. For frost, hardpan, roots and fractured rock, a ripper is the cheaper answer than a bigger bucket: the Geith Excavator Ripper Tooth and the Amulet Excavator Ripper – Severe-Duty both concentrate the machine's force on a single point. If ripping produces dust from concrete or stone, OSHA's respirable crystalline silica standard for construction, 29 CFR 1926.1153, applies to heavy equipment used to abrade or fracture silica-containing materials.

Augers, racks and storage

An auger on an excavator needs three matched parts: a drive unit fed by an auxiliary circuit, a mount that suits your stick or coupler, and a bit chosen for the ground. Star Industries products here cover the Auger Complete Assembly, a Rock Auger Bit for stone and cemented material, a T-Post Auger Bit for fence and sign posts, a Single Flight Heavy Duty Auger Bit for general soil, and a Fixed Length Shaft Extension for holes deeper than the bit itself. Auger Racks and 84" Excavator Bucket Racks keep bits and buckets off the ground and organised on the trailer or in the yard — a small purchase that prevents damaged flighting and cutting edges.

Lifting, operator safety and maintenance

Buyers searching for excavator lifting attachments should separate two jobs. Moving palleted material at ground level is fork work — the Geith Excavator Pallet Forks list configurations with 60, 65 and 80 mm dipper pins and centers of 365, 400 and 415 mm. Hoisting a suspended load is a different regulatory question: OSHA's construction crane standard, 29 CFR 1926 Subpart CC, treats an excavator as covered hoisting equipment when it is configured to hoist and lower a suspended load rather than dig, and ISO 10567, the standard for hydraulic excavator lift capacity, rates lift at no more than 87% of hydraulic capacity or 75% of tipping load.

Maintenance on attachments is short but non-negotiable. Grease pins on schedule, inspect weld-on plates and thumb base plates for cracking around the toes, check bushing and pin wear before it elongates the bore, and route auxiliary hoses so they cannot be pinched when the stick curls fully. Keep quick disconnects capped when a tool is stored. Whatever you buy, confirm the machine weight range, pin diameter and mount option on that product's fitment table against your own machine before ordering.