Rowski - You're welcome! And thanks for the kind words. Certainly somebody should get some benefit from all my phone calls, web searching, magazine reading, and trial-and-error mistakes. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
I mounted mine by getting another guy to help me hold it (two more would've been a lot nicer - that thing is heavy!). I assembled it in the position closest to the bucket and lowered it down the dipperstick until the end of the thumb was even with the bucket teeth when the bucket is curled about 45 degrees (assuming 90 degrees is at right angles to the dipperstick), and marked that spot. That way, if you use it in the position farthest from the bucket, it will hang over the teeth just slightly when the bucket is curled to meet it, which I've found to be what works best. Then I removed the thumb from the bracket that gets welded onto the dipperstick and we welded it in the spot we'd marked earlier. For storage, I usually leave the thumb on the dipperstick, but remove the brace that holds it in the extended position. If you really needed to save the extra 100 lbs or so, you could remove it entirely and leave only the welded-on bracket, but I haven't found that it matters on my backhoe.
Mark