This is the Bucket Buddy Sash, a stylish shoulder strap that makes it easier to haul heavy 5 gallon buckets.
The sash is made from 3″ woven polypropylene and can support loads of up to 35 pounds. It’s adjustable too, so that you can carry your bucket at a comfortable height.
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See how easy it works?
Have you ever needed to sign some paperwork while carrying a 5 gallon bucket? You need two hands for that! Sure, you could put the bucket down, but where? And all that bending and lifting? There’s a better way! The Bucket Buddy Sash lets you sign those forms hands-free!
What if you need to carry two buckets? For that, there’s the Bucket Buddy Harness Bucket Carrying System, which is essentially a double Bucket Buddy Sash that wraps over your shoulders and around your back.
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The harness is adjustable and can support up to 90 pounds.
Price: $23-25
Buy Now: Sash via Amazon
Buy Now: Sash via Lee Valley
Buy Now: Harness via Amazon
The sash and harness are made in the USA by the Forearm Forklift company.
Discussion
Okay, so I wrote the post tongue-in-cheek to give the impression that this is an April Fools Day joke product, but it’s real. And actually, it’s not a bad idea. 5 gallon buckets can get heavy, and when they get heavy they can be awkward to carry and move around.
With this product, you’re distributing some of the load across your shoulder, which seems like it’ll help with how awkward heavy buckets can be to move.
I can’t judge its effectiveness, but the company behind this product also makes webbing straps for lifting bulky and heavy objects, and those straps have received very many positive reviews.
The sash or harness might be worth a try, and it should be easy to experiment with a luggage or messenger bag shoulder strap to see how much you like the idea before you open your wallet.
Planegrain
I actually use a similar strap to carry my miter saw around. I keep a physical hold on it also. Works well if adjusted properly.
fred
How about a Swiss milkmaid’s style yoke:
https://www.lehmans.com/product/shoulder-yoke/
Chris
Wow, what an overpriced opportunistic cash grab…
You could make the same thing with some scrap 2x material and an hour of labor to cut and sand contours. Buy some cord and carabinersfor hooks.
Easily less than a $20 bill. That thing doesn’t even come with the buckets shown…go buy some buckets for $5 for the DIY solution.
SMH…
Koko the Talking Ape
Well to be fair, that yoke is 2 1/2″ thick, closer to a 3x. That would be a slow cut with a jigsaw. I guess a bandsaw would be quick, as you say, but I don’t have one.
And the hooks at the end are not in the same plane as the neck cutout, for some reason. So it has to be glued up, most likely.
And the thing is “handmade,” down to the iron hooks.
So I suppose that price might be fair, on a cost plus basis. It certainly isn’t on a value basis, as you say.
mattd
I am a bit concerned that this company does not know what they are doing. In their promo pictures they show a 5 gallon bucket of paint. a 5 gal bucket of paint weighs over 50 lbs, and yet they designed this to max out at 35 lbs. This would not be a bad idea if it was actually rated at a useful weight instead of a half full bucket of paint.
mattd
A fully loaded tool bucket will easily weigh over 35 lbs as well. I cannot understand who thought 35lb max was a good target.
Stuart
Maybe they have in mind that for full buckets part of the weight would be handheld?
fred
Along similar lines – these are these for lifting potted plants:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FFE4SKO/ref=twister_B07DSDPSH4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Planegrain
I have seen 20000 pound capacity tow straps(15-20 feet long), sell for around $15.00.
Nathan
OK so OSHA guidelines also suggest that a person shouldn’t carry much more than 70 lbs by themselves at one time. I suspect with the casual carrying of an open bucket that would swing, there was no expectation to use this on a 5 gallon paint bucket.
However let’s check something.
water is usually 7 lbs / gallon. Loose basic top soil is roughly 7.9 lbs / gallon.
So 5 gallon bucket not quite full to the top would be roughly 35 lbs.
I think it’s reasonable and yes one could make it themselves. I’ve used rope before with buckets of dirt but it’s a touch uncomfortable.
fred
7 pounds/gallon for water ? Actually 8.345 pounds at 39 deg. F – but I get your point.
The old mnemonic about remembering the approximate density of water was : “the pint’s a pound the world around”
Nathan
Crap. quite right. I work with Jet fuel too much. I was thinking about Jet A1.
fred
That’s one of the reasons that oil floats on water – usually less dense. But some things that they call “oil” like bunker C – can have a spG over 1
Jim Felt
And it nearly takes dynamite to ignite it.
Don’t ask how I might know this.
tim Rowledge
And it’s a ridiculous mnemonic.
A pint is 20 fluid ounces outside the US. Worse yet, a US fluid ounce is 29.53 grams whereas a UK fluid ounce is 28.4 grams. So a US gallon is 8 US pints = 128 US fluid oz = 3.875 litres but a UK gallon is 8 UK pints = 160 UK fluid oz = 4.56 litres. It’s madness I tell you, madness !
Stuart
It’s okay for approximations to be rough. As long as I just need ballpark numbers, I usually count a gallon as 8 pounds and 4 liters as 8 pounds.
Planegrain
Home Depot has a carrying strap by Huskey. Chain with a very comfortable shoulder pad. I think it was rated at 45-55pounds.
BeauxTX1
Cool idea! I’m gonna make a couple. Easy peasey.
Mark
I legit, thought this was a joke. It has to be, right?
Adabhael
Isn’t this going to bang against and roll along your leg while walking, thus sloshing liquid all over, and generally tilting as the handle is pulled diagonally? I guess it is multi-function, doing double duty as a drum strap for the weekend fife and drum corps or war reenactors.
On the subject of too-low weight ratings for straps, I used to break the clips on the shoulder straps of on my tool bags. CLC will replace under warranty (once) but they and I disagree somewhat about the definition of the design load. Now I salvage LATCH straps from destroyed car seats. They are rated for thousands of pounds of force, easy to adjust and lock the length, and have very robust clips at each end.
Brian M
I like that in the second pic you can clearly see the bucket is empty.
You guys are missing the usefulness to people with one arm that have to carry buckets. This would be soo helpful for that one-armed person in Tiger King.
Joe Hanson
When we had to go and pick up litter as part of a park maintenance crew, I should have cobbled together something like this.
Wayne R.
Who’s got a good idea for a padded hip spacer, to keep it away from your leg (without going to Fred’s milkmaid thing)? One of those yoga blocks?
Flotsam
I got a chuckle about being able to get a signature.
Seriously? You can’t put it down for a second to get a signature?
Stuart
In their defense, what kinds of scenarios would you have staged for marketing photos?
Stony
A pretty blonde in cut offs is better!
Nick Jones
Would have definitely gone the milk maid route… which this is a poor copy of… seriously without a yolk wouldn’t your legs just get wet?
Matthew Carpenter
You’re a day late for April Fools….
Stuart
You’re a day late in reading the post…
JR3 Home Performance
Haha tricked me. I was so sure it was a gag and figured I’d just enjoy reading through anyway..only to find out it’s real. Good one!
Stuart
=)
High & Mighty
This could certainly be a very useful tool if it were only rated to handle more weight. But you don’t want to overload. Most 5 gallon buckets of paint, drywall mud, thinset, acrylpro, redgard, etc are normally carried using two hands. If you can carry a full bucket of rucco mud with one hand, I’ll have to see it to believe it. Why would you want to strap 200 lbs around your neck and shoulders? That’s painful. That defeats the purpose of carrying a manageable weight and utilizing the tool to your advantage. It would be unwise to try to carry a bucket of concrete or anything that heavy around your neck and shoulders. That’s a great way to herniate your back or worse. As far as keeping it from sloshing out, its called a lid. Most buckets that contain something come with one. Or if you buy an empty bucket, a lid can be purchased separately for less than $3 right next to the bucket. Common sense sold out unfortunately. I’m not sure where to buy it from. Use the tool between your two shoulders before using the tool to carry two buckets.
Koko the Talking Ape
That load rating is ridiculously low. I’ve seen sewn webbing loops rated for hundreds of pounds.
It looks like the reason for the low rating is that dinky white strap that loops around the bucket handle.
In fact, it looks like it was designed to break.
In other words, this is a Nerfed by Lawyers (NbL) design. A stronger design might cause somebody to carry too heavy a load, which might hurt them, and they might blame the equipment for some reason and sue the manuf. Or that’s my take, at least.
Sad.
Joey
Stylish???????
Stuart
Embellishing language was needed in the attempt to trick people into thinking this was an April Fools Day product and not a real one.
Dr Lex Winter
There’s a reason that for thousands of years we’ve used a pole between the straps. Because what you have here will smash into your legs and slow you down massively. Where as a three foot pole or plank will keep them well away, allowing you to comfortably carry two very heavy and full buckets. I’m disappointed no one has made an aluminium one with soft modern padding yet. I guess I’ll make my own.
Ray
Hasn’t anyone ever watched a Kung Fu movie
All u need is a stick and a lil rope and 2 buckets