I am looking at two 16 ton machines with progressive link thumbs for forestry, making and improving roads in a mountainside, removing stumps and brush/trees One machine has a thumb where the tines do not fit between the teeth of the bucket like the other machine. Rather, half of the tines hit the digging teeth end to end. Are there any complications or regrets with that arrangement, instead of the tines all fitting between the bucket teeth?
Yeah, it's gonna be a pain in the butt to clean up small stuff. Logs, stumps and boulders aren't a problem. Plucking out small clumps of brush means digging it out by the roots instead of just grabbing it in the middle and yanking.
Your going to want the teeth to interface correctly with the bucket. You could probably find the bucket that correctly fits the teeth on the thumb, if you really want that machine more than the one that fits correctly.
Thumb likely lines up with a different bucket.
I have a thumb and the tines line up with the teeth of the bucket. It is difficult to pick up small stuff. In certain positions it will bind up real hard on the bucket teeth. This thread has me thinking that I may cut and weld the thumb, and spread the tines so that they miss the teeth and contact the cutting edge. Dan; if the two excavators are in about the same condition I would recommend getting the one that the thumb interfaces correctly with the teeth.