![JCB 3CX Backhoe loader](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/JCB_3CX_backhoe_loader.JPG)
A backhoe—also called rear actor or back actor—is a type of excavating equipment, or
digger, consisting of a digging bucket on the end of a two-part articulated arm. It is typically mounted on the back of a
tractor
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...
or
front loader, the latter forming a "
backhoe loader" (a US term, but known as a "
JCB" in Ireland and the UK). The section of the arm closest to the vehicle is known as the
boom
Boom may refer to:
Objects
* Boom (containment), a temporary floating barrier used to contain an oil spill
* Boom (navigational barrier), an obstacle used to control or block marine navigation
* Boom (sailing), a sailboat part
* Boom (windsurfi ...
, while the section that carries the bucket is known as the
dipper (or dipper-stick), both terms derived from
steam shovel
A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It is the earliest type of power shovel or excavator. Steam shovels played a major role in public works in the 19th and e ...
s. The boom is generally attached to the vehicle through a pivot known as the king-post, which allows the arm to pivot left and right, usually through a total of 180 to 200 degrees.
Description
![Excavator shovel Kobelco config](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Excavator_shovel_Kobelco_config.jpg)
The term "backhoe" refers to the action of the bucket, not its location on the vehicle. That is, a backhoe digs by drawing earth backwards, rather than lifting it with a forward motion like a person shovelling, a
steam shovel
A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It is the earliest type of power shovel or excavator. Steam shovels played a major role in public works in the 19th and e ...
, or a
bulldozer
A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...
. The buckets on some backhoes may be reconfigured facing forward, making them "hoes".
A
tractor-loader backhoe (TLB) is a
tractor
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...
-like vehicle with a backhoe at the rear, a front loader on the other and a
swivelling seat to position the operator facing whichever direction is needed at the time. In North America, this arrangement is often referred to as simply a backhoe, or when on a chassis originally derived from farm tractors, a tractor-loader backhoe. To differentiate, a backhoe on its own dedicated chassis may then be referred to as an
excavator
Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. They are a natural progression fro ...
.
Backhoe loaders can be designed and manufactured from the start as such, or can be the result of a farm tractor equipped with a front end loader (FEL) and rear backhoe. Though similar looking, the purpose-designed backhoe loaders are much stronger, with the farm variation unsuitable for heavy work.
With the advent of
hydraulic powered attachments such as a
tiltrotator,
breaker, a
grapple or an
auger
Auger may refer to:
Engineering
* Wood auger, a drill for making holes in wood (or in the ground)
** Auger bit, a drill bit
* Auger conveyor, a device for moving material by means of a rotating helical flighting
* Auger (platform), the world's f ...
, the backhoe is frequently used in many applications other than excavation and with the
tiltrotator attachment serves as an effective tool carrier. Many backhoes feature
quick coupler
Quick couplers (also called quick hitches) are used with construction machines to allow the rapid change of buckets and attachments on the machine. They remove the need to use hammers to manually drive out and insert the mounting pins for attach ...
(quick-attach) mounting systems for simplified attachment mounting, dramatically increasing the machine's utilization on the job site. Backhoes are usually employed together with
loaders and
bulldozers
A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal #Blade, blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous ...
. Excavators that use a backhoe are sometimes called "trackhoes" by people who do not realize the name is due to the action of the bucket, not its location on a backhoe loader.
Backhoe loaders are general-purpose tools, and are being displaced to some extent by multiple specialist tools like the excavator and the speciality front-end loader, especially with the rise of the mini-excavator. On many job sites which would have previously seen a backhoe used, a
skid-steer loader and a
mini excavator
A compact or mini excavator is a tracked or wheeled vehicle with an approximate operating weight from 0.7 to 8.5 tonnes. It generally includes a standard backfill blade and features independent boom swing.
Hydraulic excavators are somewhat diffe ...
will be used in conjunction to fill the backhoe's role. However, backhoes are still in general use. The difference between the backhoe and the skid-steer loader, are that the backhoe has attachments back and front, where as the skid-steer loader only has front attachments, however, the attachment versatility on a skid-steer loader is much greater.
Sometimes a backhoe
bucket is reversed to work in a
power shovel configuration.
Sometimes a backhoe arm is used as a crane, by slinging the lifted object from the support linkages behind the scoop (advisably not from the teeth, preferably from a hook welded on a bucket,
quick coupler
Quick couplers (also called quick hitches) are used with construction machines to allow the rapid change of buckets and attachments on the machine. They remove the need to use hammers to manually drive out and insert the mounting pins for attach ...
or
tiltrotator).
Origins
The backhoe swing frame was invented in 1947 by Vaino (pronounced "Waino") J. Holopainen and Roy E. Handy Jr. The swing frame "allowed the hydraulic digging arm to swing to the side to dump the bucket under US patent # 2,698,697".
In April 1948 Wain-Roy Corporation sold the very first hydraulic backhoe, mounted to a Ford Model 8N tractor, to the Connecticut Light and Power Company for $705.
The first tractor-loader backhoe was a Wain-Roy backhoe mounted to a Frank G. Hough model "HE" in 1952 in Holden, Massachusetts, US, for the Holden Water Department. The F.G. Hough Company was a subsidiary of the International Harvester Company. By early 1954, two Hough "Payloader" model wheel loaders, the HE and the HF, were available with Wain-Roy backhoes. In 1954 the Wain-Roy Corporation negotiated a deal with IH for the Hough TLB full-scale production on several other models of Hough loaders.
In the same year,
JCB launched the first European hydraulic loader, followed by a backhoe with a 180° slew, fitted to a tractor, in 1953. In 1957,
Case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
developed the first integrated tractor backhoe loader at the
Case New Holland plant in
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...
, helping contractors complete their work more efficiently.
JCB introduced the first dedicated backhoe loader, incorporating the excavator and the major loader in a single, all-purpose tool.
In 1960, Vaino Holopainen was introduced as "Mr. Backhoe" to Henry Ford II.
Wain-Roy continued to produce them for Ford until 1963, when Ford started making their own. Wain-Roy Corporation later bought the AC Anderson Company.
Although the Wain-Roy Corporation no longer exists, the Wain-Roy product line of backhoe attachments and couplers is still available through the Woods Equipment Company of Rockford, Illinois, US. In 1965, Kelly G. Cunningham used the 7.6
Gravely Tractor Gravely, of Brillion, Wisconsin, is a manufacturer of powered lawn and garden implements which it describes as "walk-behind, zero turn and outfront mowers". It started as a manufacturer of "walk-behind" or two-wheel tractors.
History
Foundation
...
to create the Terramite Model 1 compact backhoe, known as the T1.
Because of the long-time predominance of the
JCB marque in the United Kingdom and Ireland, it has become a
genericized trademark there, and backhoe-equipped diggers are commonly called ''JCBs'', while the term "backhoe" as an excavator component is almost unknown to the general public in this context. The founder of the JCB company,
Joseph Cyril Bamford
Joseph Cyril Bamford CBE (21 June 1916 – 1 March 2001)Ritchie, BerrObituary: Joseph Bamford obituary, ''The Independent'', 7 March 2001 was a British businessman, who was the founder of the JCB company, manufacturing heavy plant.
Biog ...
, is the only Briton to be honored in the
Association of Equipment Manufacturers
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is a North American-based trade association representing off-road equipment manufacturers and suppliers, with more than 1,000 companies and more than 200 product lines in the agriculture and constr ...
Hall of Fame.
Backhoe fade
"Backhoe fade" or "JCB fade" is a term coined by the telecommunications field to refer to accidental damage or complete severing of a communications cable by a backhoe or similar construction activity.
[
]
The term is a play on other types of signal loss, especially on wireless networks. Most of these cause a reduction in the signal, such as
rain fade Rain fade refers primarily to the absorption (optics), absorption of a microwave radio frequency (RF) signal by atmospheric rain, snow, or ice, and losses which are especially prevalent at frequencies above 11 GHz. It also refers to the degradation ...
. A cable subjected to "backhoe fade" is instead a sudden and initially inexplicable loss of signal experienced when a cable is accidentally dug up and damaged or cut.
Notable manufacturers
*
Case CE
Case Construction Equipment (stylized as CASE Construction Equipment, commonly referred to as simply Case) is an American manufacturer of construction machinery. Along with CASE IH, Case Construction Equipment is a brand of CNH. Case produces con ...
, United States (subsidiary of
CNH, Netherlands)
*
Caterpillar Inc.
Caterpillar Inc. (stock symbol CAT) is an American ''Fortune'' 500 corporation and the world's largest construction-equipment manufacturer.
In 2018, Caterpillar was ranked number 65 on the ''Fortune'' 500 list and number 238 on the Global ''Fo ...
, United States
*
Deere & Company
Deere & Company, Trade name, doing business as John Deere (), is an American corporation that manufactures agricultural machinery, heavy equipment, forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains (axles, transmissions, gearboxes) used in heavy e ...
, United States
*
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
, United States
*
Hitachi Construction Machinery (Europe), Netherlands (subsidiary of
Hitachi Construction Machinery
is a Japanese construction equipment company which is into the manufacturing, sales and service of construction machinery, transportation machinery, and other machines and devices. It is a subsidiary of the Hitachi Group.
History
Hitachi Cons ...
, Japan)
*
Hydrema, Denmark
*
JCB, United Kingdom
*
Komatsu, Japan
*
Kubota
Kubota machine
is a Japanese multinational corporation based in Osaka. It was established in 1890. The corporation produces many products including tractors and other agricultural machinery, construction equipment, engines, vending machines, p ...
, Japan
*
LiuGong
LiuGong, officially Guangxi LiuGong Machinery Co., Ltd., is a Chinese multinational
construction machinery manufacturing company headquartered in Liuzhou, China. It is the world's 10th-largest construction equipment manufacturer by market share ...
, China
*
Massey Ferguson
Massey Ferguson Limited is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer. The company was established in 1953 through the merger of farm equipment makers Massey-Harris of Canada and the Ferguson Company of the United Kingdom. It was based in T ...
, United States (subsidiary of
AGCO
AGCO Corporation is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer founded in 1990 and with its headquarters in Duluth, Georgia, United States. AGCO designs, produces and sells tractors, combines, foragers, hay tools, self-propelled sprayers, ...
, United States)
*
Mecalac, France (backhoes manufactured by former Fermec unit in Coventry, England. Acquired from
Terex in 2016)
*
New Holland Construction
New Holland Construction is an American manufacturer of construction machinery. Along with New Holland Agriculture, New Holland Construction is a brand of CNH. New Holland Construction produces construction equipment including backhoes, excava ...
, Italy
*
Volvo Construction Equipment
Volvo Construction Equipment - Volvo CE - (originally Munktells, Bolinder-Munktell, Volvo BM) is a major international company that develops, manufactures and markets equipment for construction and related industries. It is a subsidiary and busine ...
, Sweden (subsidiary of
Volvo
The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...
, Sweden)
*
XCMG
Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Co., Ltd. (XCMG Group) ( zh, s=徐工集团, p=Xúgōng Jítuán) is a Chinese multinational state-owned heavy machinery manufacturing company with headquarters in Xuzhou, Jiangsu. Founded in 1989, XCMG ...
, China
See also
*
Backhoe loader
References
External links
{{Commons category, Backhoe loaders
HowStuffWorks page on backhoe loaders including animations and a simulator
How Products Are Made: Backhoe– from enotes.com
Engineering vehicles
Excavating equipment
Articles containing video clips
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