Compaction quality determines the long-term stability of everything built on top of it — road bases, utility backfill, foundation pads, slope embankments. The wrong roller for the material type produces inconsistent density, which means settlement, shifting, and costly remediation down the road.
RSBM manufactures two vibratory roller configurations for skid steer loaders, each engineered for a specific category of compaction work. Choosing the right one for your material type delivers measurable results on density, pass count, and overall site efficiency.
Vibratory Pad Roller: Built for Clay, Silt, and Cohesive Soils
The RSBM Vibratory Pad Roller — also known in the industry as a sheepfoot roller — compacts cohesive soils through a combination of vibration and penetrating pad pressure. The raised pads on the drum surface drive down through loose overburden and deliver compaction force directly to the sub-material layer, producing consistent density from the bottom of the lift upward.
This mechanism makes the pad roller the correct choice for plastic soils — materials like silt and clay that don't respond well to surface vibration alone. Static rollers and smooth drum compactors compress the surface of these soils without adequately compacting the material beneath, which leaves unstable layers that manifest as settlement months or years after project completion.
The RSBM Vibratory Pad Roller prevents this by penetrating to the target depth on each pass, ensuring full-lift compaction rather than surface-only density.
RSBM offers two pad configurations:
Solid Pad Roller The solid pad design delivers maximum penetration force per pad contact. Each pad drives into the soil with the full energy of the drum weight and vibration system behind it, making this configuration particularly effective on heavily compacted clay subgrades and dense silt layers that resist standard compaction methods.
Hollow Pad Roller The hollow pad design distributes the drum weight across a wider contact area per pad, reducing the risk of over-penetration on softer cohesive soils while still delivering full vibratory energy into the material. For lift thicknesses and soil densities where solid pad penetration would over-compact or disrupt the material structure, the hollow pad configuration provides the right balance of penetration and compaction force.
Both configurations mount directly to your skid steer's universal quick-attach plate and connect to the auxiliary hydraulic circuit to drive the vibratory system.
Vibratory Smooth Roller: Built for Granular Materials and Finished Surfaces
The RSBM Vibratory Smooth Roller compacts dry soil, gravel, crushed aggregate, and asphalt through a smooth drum that delivers uniform surface pressure combined with high-frequency vibration. Unlike the pad roller, the smooth drum maintains full-width contact with the surface on every pass, making it the correct tool for granular materials that compact through particle-to-particle contact rather than penetrating pad pressure.
This configuration excels in applications where surface finish quality matters as much as density — asphalt repair, gravel road maintenance, compacted aggregate base preparation, and granular backfill over utilities where a consistent, level surface is required after compaction.
The smooth roller's versatility also makes it the preferred choice for tight repair jobs and confined spaces where a full-size vibratory roller can't maneuver. Mounted on a skid steer, it handles compaction in areas inaccessible to dedicated compaction equipment — narrow utility trenches, building interior slabs, and restricted yard surfaces.
Skid Steer Mounting: Full Compaction Capability Without Dedicated Equipment
Both RSBM vibratory roller configurations mount to the skid steer's universal quick-attach system — the same connection your buckets, forks, and other attachments use. The vibratory drive connects to the auxiliary hydraulic circuit, with flow and pressure requirements matched to standard skid steer specifications.
This mounting approach gives contractors full compaction capability without investing in dedicated compaction equipment that sits unused between compaction phases of a project. The skid steer handles multiple roles across the work day — loading, grading, material handling — and transitions to compaction work with a single attachment swap.
For small and mid-size contractors operating in confined environments, this versatility directly reduces equipment fleet requirements and the associated ownership and mobilization costs.
Request Specifications and Pricing
Provide your skid steer model, primary compaction material, and project application — RSBM will confirm the right roller configuration and issue a factory-direct quotation within 24 hours.
The right roller. The right material. Solid results on every pass.
Post time: Jul-29-2026