Rowski - Thanks! I was very pleased with the console myself. The funny thing is that it's made of a piece of Dural window mullion that was originally installed in my friend's house in 1954! I get a big kick out of that every time I look up at it, for some reason. I won't hide the fact that I wouldn't have been able to do that nice a job on it without my friend's help and equipment, though. Every time I leave his shop, it's with a bad case of tool envy.
The bucket has enough force to grab onto anything tight enough to lift the rear end of the tractor (with anything lighter than the backhoe on it) right off the ground, if the object will stand it. That'll clip trees smaller than 4" in diameter off first, of course. That's one place the gauge really comes in handy - you can see how much pressure you're putting on it and stop before you crush it or cut it off. I use it for pruning all the time, though. My favorite use for it is to pull up saplings and small trees, then grab a big pile of them and carry them off. Makes me feel like SuperMan and Tim Allen all rolled into one.
As for what's next, after the pending stuff, I think I'm taking a tractor modification sabbatical for a while - a few weeks at least. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
Mark