How does "float" work, and could you float a rear backhoe arm?

[emmett518]

I have a Deere 310L backhoe.

If I push the front loader control all the way forward, it floats the bucket . Meaning, the bucket rests on the ground, and will follow the ground contours up and down.

Curious how this works, and whether you could do the same thing on the rear bucket, so that you could rest the rear bucket on the ground, and scrape the surface to remove mud?

Thinking about it, I'd like to float the main backhoe arm up and down, while keeping the side to side of the main arm, and the stinger and bucket scooping part solid.

Easy thing, or major headache?

 

[Diesel Dave]

If your backhoe controls are pilot operated , I would say major headache !

 

[Dave Neubert]

You would have to change the valve to one with float position way more trouble than worth

 

[emmett518]

What does float do hydraulically? Open so that fluid passes into and out of the cylinder?

 

[Dave Neubert]

It opens both sides of cylinder and returns it to the tank

 

[Coytee]

If I push the front loader control all the way forward, it floats the bucket . Meaning, the bucket rests on the ground, and will follow the ground contours up and down.

so that you could rest the rear bucket on the ground, and scrape the surface to remove mud?

You seem to understand how the loader works. Why not use it to back drag (while floating) to scrape the surface mud?

What I might do is rotate bucket down so edge (with no teeth) is acting like a blade on the ground. Backup, while in float and scoot/even out whatever I'm working on.

 

[emmett518]

The 8 foot bucket is too wide. I had a bolt on, flat edge made for the back bucket which is 24 inches wide instead of 96.

To be honest, I should hike up my big girl panties and learn how to control the back bucket using the joysticks and skim the ground.

As a newbie, it just takes hours of practice.

 

[Welder Dave]

Use the curve of the backhoe bucket on the ground instead of the edge so it won't dig in and it will work kind of like float to scrape mud off. It won't matter too much if there's a little down pressure on the bucket because of uneven ground. You'd have to be careful with float on the backhoe the same as using float going forward with the front bucket. If the bucket dug in it could slam the cylinder(s) to the stop and cause major damage.

 

[emmett518]

Good point. Never thought of that.

 

[Ryan Ricard]

I’ve been interested in this as well, as a potential to pull a land plane or back blade attachment for grading. Seems like if you had a float option on the main arm, you could use the curl to adjust the plane angle and grade like a skip loader

 

[Welder Dave]

I don't think a land plane or rear blade would work very well on a backhoe boom. There'd be too much down pressure just from the weight of the backhoe boom. I realize it would be in float position but the boom and stick are pretty darn heavy.

 

[Ryan Ricard]

Id put wheels on the back and use the curl to add/subtract down pressure and angle. But, sounds like adding a float feature would be a huge pain so Im gonna just build a drag type plane with hydraulic tilt and tow it

 

[aighead]

I'm going to say Welder Dave's suggestion a bit differently, as it's the method I use to smooth things when not using the hoe bucket sides and swinging back and forth (which I think also has it's place).

Imagine your hoe bucket as a "d" shaped thing, where the farthest left part of the "d" is the open bucket. You can get a pretty smooth surface by using the curvy part of the "d" instead of the open end or tooth part. Rotate the "d" 90 degrees clockwise with curling.

So, you curl in a bit (you may want to be a bit closer to the area you are smoothing than you expect), so the open part of the bucket is parallel to the ground, and you shove or pull in with the bottom or back of the "d" then I also use the bottom of the bucket to smash piles too. You can move or grade a pretty significant amount of material this way. I feel like it's similar to using the back of a rake instead of the toothy side of the rake.

There is still a fair amount of soft touch and finesse needed for the boom and stick levers but when it works right it's pretty satisfying!

 

[Tinkerer]

It is a lot easier than what I have read so far.
Put the bottom of the bucket flat on the excavation. Raise the cutting edge just enough to not be cutting any material.
Pull the dipper in, raise the boom and hold the bucket flat while doing that.
Down pressure has to be maintained to make it smooth and compacted.
It requires coordination to do all three things at once.
It is what I do when I make my last and it will not remove any material.
The excavation has to be on grade on that last pass.
If you raise the cutting edge tooo high the bucket will remove material.

 

[HarleyHappy]

I think that’s called being an operator. lol

 

[Willie B]

The 8 foot bucket is too wide. I had a bolt on, flat edge made for the back bucket which is 24 inches wide instead of 96.

To be honest, I should hike up my big girl panties and learn how to control the back bucket using the joysticks and skim the ground.

As a newbie, it just takes hours of practice.

If you are smoothing out existing ground get a tire heavy as you can, drag it toward the hoe.
You can use the bottom of the bucket to flatten the ground.
I bought a 36" toothless bucket. I love it!