10 things you didn’t know you could do with a skid steer loader

When Melroe introduced the first machine we would recognise today as a four-wheel skid-steer loader – the M440 Melroe Bobcat – back in 1962, little did they know that one day, these units would have such a profound impact on the construction, mining and agricultural industries.

The modern machines are compact, easy to control, powerful, have a tight turning radius and, best of all, can be used for a multitude of tasks, thanks to their ability to be used with an assortment of attachments.  From moving materials to post-hole digging, light dozing to trenching, mowing to lifting; this machine can do it all.

But do you know it can also be used to fix roads and clear snow?

Here, we look at some of the more unusual uses for your skid steer.

There's no need to call in the big guns for road widening and repair when you have a skid-steer loader and a ShoulderMaster paver attachment.

Designed and developed by Stabilcorp in Australia especially for use with skid steer loaders, these attachments can be used for road shoulder repairs and remediation, road widening, trench backfilling, and laying asphalt and aggregates.

They can widen shoulders up to 1.6m at a rate of up to 400m/h. Stabilcorp claims the SM1500 model can lay a 1m x 300m section of road in one day compared to a conventional three days, and at less than a third of the cost and fuel use.

The Beak, made by Daniel Mfg. Inc. in the United States, is a fork-grapple skid steer attachment designed to break up and move concrete slabs.

While there are many similar products out there, The Beak makes things easier by combining high-leverage crowbar-style forks with a powerful hydraulic jaw that looks a bit like, well, a beak (especially with the eyes painted on the side).

The jaw opens to 965mm and has a gripping force of around 2260kg. While it was made with concrete breaking and removal in mind, buyers are reporting that they're finding all sorts of uses for The Beak, including general demolition and boulder and tree work. One guy even commented that it's like "having a thumb for a skid loader".

Forget the big cement mixing trucks; you can mix your own cement as long as you have a skid steer loader lying around.

There are a few options for mixing cement with a skid-steer loader. One style of attachment is a mixer bucket with an unloading pipe, and the other is a bowl that attaches to the end of an auger drive.

The latter, like the one pictured above from Auger Torque, is ideal for mixing cement in small quantities for fence-laying over rough terrain. It makes sense – operators will drill a hole using the auger, swap the auger for the mixer, pour the cement and then switch back to the auger for drilling the next hole.

Here's something that really highlights just how versatile a skid-steer is.

The Skid-Lift is an aerial work platform (AWP) that attaches to your skid-steer loader and gets its power from your auxiliary hydraulic system.

Made by the eponymous company in Fargo, North Dakota, the Skid-Lift comes in three models with working heights of 6.4m, 7.3m or 8.5m.

The middle model can even tilt four degrees to the side for hard-to-reach places. The advantages are aplenty; the loader is well designed to carry the Skid-Lift over uneven ground and the attachment takes its power from the loader.

When it comes to grading, you can simply add a blade to your skid-steer loader, or you can go the whole hog and turn it into a bona fide grader complete with Trimble 3D machine control.

The Bobcat grader attachment comes in a smaller 2.1m model or larger 2.4m or 2.7m variants. Their blades have six- or eight-way movements, so each side of the blade can move up and down independently.

The larger models have 33cm of hydraulic side-shift so you can grade flush against objects or move material into hard-to-reach places.

A bolster is able to oscillate to roll over uneven terrain and give more stability to the rest of the machine for a finer grade. This is aided by large flotation wheels on their own castors. If you want the full package, you can add a Trimble control system that can complete complex designs with an accuracy of 3-5mm and keep the boss very happy.

The Skip Bin Bucket from Himac Attachments is a simple answer to a perennial problem. Attach the bucket to your skid-steer loader, detach it wherever you need a bin on site, and re-collect it when it's full. All you need to do is convince your subbies to put their debris in it instead of next to it.

The sturdy bin has a capacity of one cubic metre and comes with a universal mount, though other mounts are available as well.

This is a serious time-saver. The Conveyor Bucket from Norm Engineering can scoop raw materials such as dirt, rocks, gravel, mulch and poultry feed like any other bucket, but that's where the resemblance ends.

This bucket has a conveyor belt underneath that can accurately spit material out the sides for tasks such as back-filling trenches, bag filling, distributing feed, filling blast holes and so on.

Adjustable shutters on each side of the bucket controls the outflow of material, while the hydraulic flow determines the speed of the conveyor belt and the distance of the material spread.

An optional chute is available for bag filling purposes.

Clearing loose debris from the bottom of a drilled hole is a problem that has prompted many an animated discussion at the front bar.

Do you use a spoon-shaped shovel? Dig deeper, backfill and tamp down? Or use a vacuum excavator?

While all those methods work well, a simple solution would be to go straight for a purpose-built hole cleaner like this one from Digga.

It simply attaches to your auger drive and clears the spoil from the hole, leaving a clean and flattened base. Sizes vary from 300mm to 1.5m, with the option of a 65mm round or 75mm square shaft.

Bobcat makes a variety of snow-clearing skid-steer attachments: The Snow Blade, the Snow Pusher, the Snow V-Blade and the Snowblower.

Each one is made for different degrees of snowfall, but since Australia's snow is generally on the lighter side, the snow blade is probably most suited to our conditions.

The blades come in widths between 1.4m and 2.7m and can be angled 30 degrees each side, using an in-cab fingertip control. They also oscillate five degrees to keep in contact with the surface and have high-visibility masts at each end so you know where the corners are.

Just remember – no gluhwein in the cab's cupholders while you do this!

We've all used vacuums for cleaning up and some have used them for excavation purposes, but do you know vacuums can be used for lifting too?

The Vacuworx SL 2 is an all-aluminium attachment that runs off your skid-steer loader's hydraulic system and can be used to lift concrete, marble, granite, metal, steel, iron and landscape pavers up to 1.25 tonnes.

While it works perfectly with skid steers, fleet owners who need to use the attachment with mini excavators or small cranes can do so as well, which is made easy with the quick-connect hydraulic hoses on the Vacuworx SL 2