PLOTCASTER Photo to line art
Objects and vehicles

Free excavator SVG files

Free excavator SVG files: a crawler excavator from the side, a silhouette, one digging a trench, a mini excavator, a simple one for children, a backhoe loader, a skid steer, a front loader, a dump truck, an excavator loading a truck, an operator in the cab and a logo badge. All generic machines with no maker’s marks.

14 designs. Free for personal and commercial use, no sign-up. What you can do with them.

Arms, rams and tracks

An excavator is a heavy body with a slim arm, and the slimmest parts of the arm are the hydraulic rams that run beside the boom and the stick. On the excavator from the side at 100 mm long they are about 2.6 mm wide, the bucket has one short tooth on its lip and the roller holes in the track are 5 to 7 mm across. In vinyl it cuts well from about 100 mm long. For a child’s shirt, 200 to 250 mm is usual, and at that size the three vents in the house weed without trouble.

When it has to be small, use the simple excavator for children, where the arm is nearly 7 mm thick at full size, or the silhouette, which has no rams at all and only the cab windows cut out. The silhouette and the excavator digging a trench both have a straight base, so they stand up in a shadow box or along the bottom of a birthday banner.

Which machine is which

The excavator has tracks and one long arm that swings with the cab. A backhoe loader is a tractor with a loading bucket in front and a smaller digging arm behind. A skid steer is the short, tall loader that turns on the spot, and the front loader is the big one on four large tyres. The dump truck carries away what they dig. Children who love diggers know the difference, so pick the right one for the birthday.

How to open the files

  • Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
  • Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
  • LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
  • Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
  • Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions

Which excavator is best for a birthday shirt?

The simple excavator for children at 150 to 200 mm wide: it is made of thick shapes with one window and three holes in the track to weed. For an older child who knows the machines, use the excavator from the side at 220 mm or more, or the excavator loading a dump truck across the chest.

Is the excavator copied from a real make?

No. It is a generic crawler excavator drawn for this library. There is no badge or model number, the house and cab are plain boxes and the colour of the layered version is ordinary site yellow, which no maker owns.

Can I use the excavator logo for my business?

Yes. The badge is a cog with the excavator inside and no lettering, so it does not look like any existing company’s mark. Add your business name round or under it in your own lettering. Cut it at 80 mm or more so that the arm, about 2.3 mm wide at its tip on a 100 mm badge, stays strong.

More free SVG files