INSIDE SCOOP: ANTHONY TALKS TILTS
Volume 2, Issue 2
April 2025
The Tiltrotator Workshop
On a cold, foggy February morning in Pennsylvania, we had the opportunity to spend some quality time with several really cool hardscape companies. These gentlemen—and ladies—were there to learn how to improve their on-site efficiency and bottom line. We’re biased, of course, but our presenter, Anthony LaFata, is truly a joy to listen to, with a fascinating history and a unique industry perspective.
“My father was an immigrant from Palermo, Sicily. He started a landscaping business in 1965. He was a hard, hard worker. Very smart. By 1980, we were a full-grown excavation company. This [picture] was taken around that time. That’s me, my dad, and our crew. We’re standing in front of a Cat D9L with a prototype impact ripper. My father always sought out new technology,” explained Anthony.
“What do you notice is different about this picture?” Anthony asked.
A couple of the guys attending were quick to correctly recognize Anthony’s current lack of hair compared to the old photo showing a full mop top. Crowd laughter.
Anthony went on, “A&D Equipment started as a concept when our excavation company, LaFata & Son, began reaching out to the global marketplace for innovative products—like screening buckets and tiltrotators. Along the way, we got to meet some pretty cool people. Steelwrist was one of them. Today, the excavating vision is recycling and efficiency.”
Anthony On: Tiltrotator Fundamentals
Steelwrist is a tiltrotator company. A tiltrotator is something you put on the end of your excavator, basically making it a Swiss Army knife. It gives us the ability to manipulate materials, products, and tools on the job site.
Steelwrist tiltrotators are manufactured in Sweden and imported here into the U.S. They are most forward-thinking product out there, with integrated technologies such as quick coupler systems, integrated gripper cassettes, and the ability to couple to any tool in the industry. With a tiltrotator and the gripper cassette, you can capture any tool, like a compactor.
Does anyone understand what that means? It means you can capture a tool with a machine rather than needing a human being. It means you no longer need a laborer to grab a chain or a strap and couple to that tool to move it. Now, you can do it with a machine.
With 360º of rotation and a 45º tilt, a tiltrotator gives us the ability to place the materials wherever we want on the job site. It’s safer and, more importantly, gives us the ability to use that laborer for another task.
We can integrate other technologies onto our tiltrotator, such as a grapple. Instead of strapping or cabling rocks to move them, we can now do it with a grapple. We can pick up that rock, spin it around, and place it anywhere we want.
Anthony On: Site Planning and Material Handling
As a contractor/business owner, I am always thinking about site planning and material handling. Let’s consider the grapple and loading a truck. A grapple gives us the ability to maneuver materials in or out of a truck without having to worry about how the truck or the machine is positioned.
For example, if you picked up a load of logs and wanted to load them into a dumpster, your machine would have to be perpendicular to that dumpster. With a tiltrotator, we can now capture that material, rotate it in any direction, tilt it, and place it into the truck. We don’t have to plan to dig our machine level to dig a straight trench. When the machine is tilted, the tiltrotator can level out. We can dig that trench exactly the way we want to. Having that ability limits the amount of extra work we have to do on the job site.
Here’s another example as it relates to manpower: we used to run a five-man pipe crew—five guys all assigned to doing sewer pipe. Today, we do that with three guys. Now we can take those two amazing laborers out of the trench and move them up to a second pipe crew.
Material handling and site planning are a big deal when it comes to a tiltrotator saving you time, money, and really increasing your job site safety.
What will the tiltrotator not do? It won’t call out sick.
This is important. Using this technology is one thing—but if we don’t utilize it correctly, it’s just a boat anchor. At A&D, we not only sell the product and install the product, but we also provide training. Over the past 25 years of using different attachments—and the last 11 years of using tiltrotators—we’re happy to take all that information we’ve collected and share it with our A&D customers.
Prefer to read offline? Read/Download the April Edition PDF: Get Attached – Talking Tilts
Anthony On: Quick Coupling Systems
Tiltrotators are much more efficient and safer, with high productivity and reduced overall costs. But it’s not just about tiltrotators—it’s also about quick coupling systems. Steelwrist has a unique coupling system that can connect to hydraulic tools without ever getting out of the cab. Let’s say you’re running an X12 tiltrotator with an SQ coupling system—you can go from a grapple to a digging bucket and then to a screening bucket, all from the cab.
Steelwrist’s coupler control systems are very advanced. You can even drop the tiltrotator and go straight to a bucket, making things incredibly efficient, fast, and safe. The wet coupler also allows us to attach other tools. For example, if I wanted to use dust suppression on a hammer, I could adjust the suppression through the coupler system by simply having a tank on the machine. I can connect to it and activate dust suppression—without ever needing anyone on the ground.
Use your imagination when it comes to what could be an attachment. When using a tiltrotator, don’t just think of it as buying Steelwrist products—or even somebody else’s products. You can come up with some cool ideas. For us, because we do a lot of utility work, we use trench boxes. So, we’ve adapted our trench box with a coupling system on it.
Typically, when we go to a water main or sewer main, we have to take our trench box, set up our rigging, pick it up, swing it into the hole, get a ladder for a guy to go down, disconnect the rigging, and then press the trench box in. With the coupling system, we weld an adaptor onto the trench box. That way, we can capture the trench box, our build height becomes very low, we don’t have to worry about overhead wires, and now we can pick that trench box up, place it in the hole, and let go of it. We eliminate the need for someone to rig it up. We took the human element out of it and added a major safety factor.
Question Session
What size machines do the tilts work on?
How much weight does a tilt add to your machine?
A direct fit means attaching the tiltrotator directly to the end of the stick, making your machine a dedicated tiltrotator machine. In order to remove the tiltrotator, you’d have to disassemble it, which isn’t simple. We have companies in New York City, New Jersey, and Boston—especially city contractors with small machines—that have dedicated tiltrotator machines. They have no intention of removing the tiltrotator.
More companies are choosing the sandwich fit because it offers a coupling system both above and below the tiltrotator. This allows us to connect everything the tiltrotator can connect to through the quick coupler, giving us the flexibility to easily remove the tiltrotator when not needed. So, if we want to use a hammer or a ripper, we don’t need that extra weight. If we have several machines in our fleet of the same size, we can outfit those machines with the same control system. This allows them to share the tiltrotator. If a company can’t invest in 3 or 4 tiltrotators, they can still operate the same tools across multiple machines by sharing the control system.
Should you put a tilt on an older excavator?
We look at the condition of the machine. We just had this discussion with a customer the other day. He had a 15-year-old machine, but it only had about 500 hours on it—so it was definitely worth keeping. But if you have a 5- or 6-year-old machine with 6,000–8,000 hours on it, you might not want to invest in it.
Buying a new machine with the tiltrotator is an investment that will last you a long time. But if that’s not an option, you can always install the tiltrotator on your current machine and transfer it to another one later. We can take the tiltrotator and the control system and move it into a new machine. It’s not the end of the world. So don’t think, “Oh my God, I can’t afford a new machine and a tiltrotator.” Put it in, make some money, and then go buy another machine.
Over the last 11 years of using this product, we’ve found it takes about 9 months for a company to see a return on the investment.
Is there a lot of maintenance? How about parts and service?
Will a tiltrotator work with my current buckets?
What are the most popular attachments for hardscapers?
Wrap Up
Steelwrist is a company that doesn’t believe in saying, “Oh no, you can only buy our stuff.” They want to integrate with other companies as well. They truly believe that if we work together, we can grow together.
Here at A&D, we’re a different kind of dealer than you may come across elsewhere. Since we run an excavation and recycling company, we consider you guys partners—not just customers. We’re happy to help out. Many times, I’ve lent machines with attachment tools to our customers. If they order an attachment and it’s not available quickly, but they have a job to do, and I have a machine available, they can take it.
We really make sure to get to know you and your business. What’s your goal? What are your machines? What do you need to accomplish? Whatever you buy has to be a good fit and make you money. We’re here to support you from your order, to installation, to training, and even after-market parts and service.
Thanks for spending some time with us.
