I had a total of 16 hours digging time. Its hard to see from the pictures, but when I built the first wall I installed 1/2" rebar tie backs to every second post. The rebar was set at a depth of 2', so I had to use the mini hoe to dig down below the rebar the entire 70'. Then I had to dig out a 20' tree trunk I had buried when I backfilled the orig. wall. Once I got that out of the way I used my LMB and started from the edge of the road and worked my way in taking out each rebar as I went along.
I had a local welder fabricate the mini hoe to my design and specs. last year. I purchased the 9" & 16" buckets from a company in Canada. I also installed bolt on teeth on both buckets, and it really increased the digging power. I used the 16" bucket for most of the digging with no problems at all.