A User Guide for Skid Steer Attachments

A feature that makes a compact track loader, skid steer loader, mini excavator, or compact loader such a widely used and admired piece of equipment is their facility to use various skid steer attachments to handle all sorts of job. The standard skid steer attachment is the bucket, it is a scoop that picks and hauls loose soil, mulch, gravel, etc. To decide which skid steer you would need for your line of work, let’s see various attachments along with their functions. 

A User Guide for Skid Steer Attachments

Important attachments and their functions.

Skid Steer Attachments	Functions
4 in 1 Bucket	It is like a jaw that closes and opens.
Pallet Forks	Makes your skid steer work as a forklift.
Grabble Bucket	It has arms that grip over the load.
Brooms	It is used for cleaning the worksite.
Hydraulic Hammers	For breaking concrete or rocks.
Augers	Used for drilling holes in the ground.
Root Grapple	It is used to pick up large and loose materials.
Grapple Rake	It is used to rake up loose limbs and brush.
Dozer Angle Blades	It is a blade for bulldozers used for leveling and pushing.
Cold Planer	It is used for leveling and scraping the pavement.
Truss Booms	It is used to pick up 4 x 8 plywood, 30’ truss, or other tools.
Trenchers	It is used to pierce and cut into the earth to dig down the trench of various widths and depths.
Backhoes	It is a smaller version of a digging arm.
Snowblower and Pusher	It is widely used to remove snow from tight spaces and parking lots.
Stump Grinder	It is used for turning rigid tree stumps into smut.
Brush Mowers	It is used to trim small trees, weeds, and other leaves and brushes not reachable by a lawnmower.
Tree Shears or Cutters	It is used to trim tree branches.
Tiller	It is used to turn a yard into a bed of soil.

There are numerous options for skid steer attachments, and you need not get all of those in one shot. Of course, when you buy a skid steer loader, you would need to buy a few attachments that would save labour and time and also give a quick and guaranteed return on investment. You can always get extra attachments as and when required for your line of work. 

Are all skid steer attachments interchangeable? Operators also have an option of getting the attachments on rent from the nearest local rental shop, it gets very helpful when the operator needs a specific tool only on an occasional basis. Coming to the important point, almost all the attachments are interchangeable among various models and brands of skid steers, all because of the universal skid steer attachment bracket known as “quick attach”. You can attach and share attachments over multiple brands and machines as even some compact wheel leaders and tractors use the same system. 

There are also a few attachments that cannot be interchanged such as a backhoe. It is because a backhoe generates a lot of torque that can rip it off the quick attach without any need for external support. To avoid such a situation, a backhoe is directly attached to the frame of the skid steer along with a quick attach. In such cases, attachments don’t work with machines and brands other than the brand they are intended to be used for.