Interesting! IslandFord, you always come through with more information. The quick spade is clever, a poor man's backhoe. As I do not have a backhoe, I could probably find a use for this. For instance, we have some roads where water pools and obviously a backhoe to trench it and a dozer to re-grade or make some water bars would help. Since we have neither, coud a small trench be cut with the spade to divert the water and then graded or smoothed with the bucket or box scrape? Many places need just a little trench dug to divert the water, but more than I could do with a shovel. What types of work do you do with the quick spade? It also doesn't appear to be a costly tool.
I saw on one website a hydraulic bucket (like a backhoe bucket) that attaches to the FEL. Maybe it was on ATI's product list but I'm not sure. It obviously did not have the lateral movement that a backhoe would have, but it appeared to be able to dig a straight trench. Any knowledge of this?
And Mark, thanks for not laughing at me for my question about an augur. I was almost embarrased to even ask that! Your reply make sense. I too have ordered the Long electric/hydraulic valve. And on that subject, my dealer said that Long made two different valves of this type, one with a little more flow. I don't know the flow rates or the product numbers and it is not listed on Long's site, but in their catalog that my dealer had, they listed two choices. One was about $75 more than the other. At my dealers suggestion, we ordered the larger, in case I ever needed that capacity, but I have wondered if this was the right decision. On what criteria is the selection based? The implement to be used or the hyraulic specifications of the tractor? For instance, could a valve that is too large affect the performance of the grapple or be too large for the tractor's system? The newbie that I am, I have no clue, so I followed my dealer's advice. Unfortunately, I am not totally confident that they really understand this either, but they are the only game in town.