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Wish I could help you...I did come across this link: http://www.excavatorsupply.com/bobcatthumb.htm - - - - The one thing I noticed after watching the corny vid, was the hoses are sure to be ripped off in short order. That can be fixed with 90 elbows on ram, so hoses are tight against ram. Not sure if they installed it wrong in the vid or the ram hydraulic outlets would bind against the bracket...something to consider. A bug-bear of mine with my OEM thumb is the design of thumb. It is ok for med/small boulders, but the thumb cannot get a good purchase on larger boulders given the geometry. Would have preferred a more concave design. That way, I could pick up a bundle of small logs/slash etc... Noticed my thumb has a better geometry than the link I posted above. The price looks good though...
yes i see that the one you linked is more of a convex than concave design ...does the ram look a little bigger ..maybe that makes up for the geometry ..what did you pay for your oem model ....the price on the link looked pretty good ...
I have no idea what was paid for the thumb, as I was at least, the second owner. Think it is a 5k option at Bobcat. A larger ram doesn't make up for poor geometry...imho. If my thumb can get a good purchase, it can tip me over easy...Other than the less than ideal design geometry, the price is the best I've seen by miles...perhaps they build to your specs... Here is my thumb:
Yeah, quite a difference...
when you mentioned geometry i thought you were referring to the amount of force the thumb could apply ...the factors involved would the ram size and the distance from the pivot where the ram is mounted ,,,the oem thumb does look like it is better suited to grabbing larger loads and logs ,,,even in the video of the thumb you linked they go to pick up a log/stump and their thumb wouldn't get around it ..they ended up pinching it ( not the best sales video) ..their convex design would be more suited to picking up concrete slabs and chunks than land clearing ...
Yeah, you nailed it on the head. Their thumb is suited for that. If the ram pivot point is too far out, I'd suspect one would lose range on thumb. As far as force, I've never been left wanting. The bucket is where you want the force. I notice on my setup, the bucket can overpower the thumb...a design feature I suspect. I probably shouldn't be using thumb/bucket to cut timber, but I can snap 6" logs...when I am too lazy to get out of the machine. If some big trees are about, I use them to snap logs in half...into bite size pieces...lol But you know, maybe their design could snap logs better than mine....
