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An operator working on an excavator understands who difficult it is to get every bit of work done with the help of the bucket. If it is all about pushing the dirt inside the bucket, the operator may do it with ease but when it comes to picking up the branch of a tree or lifting a concrete or a rock, it just turns out to be one of the most difficult task for him to complete. However, if he is provided with a thumb that is attached with the bucket of the excavator then things get pretty simplified. It works like fingers on your palm. As you can lift anything using your fingers, in the same fashion when the thumb is attached to the excavator it also gives great deal of comfort to the operator and he can easily lift items like huge rocks, concrete etc.
Ideally there are 2 types of thumb that can be installed on an excavator. The first is Progressive Link Thumb and the second is Stick Pivot Thumb. The Progressive Link Thumb gives more pressure throughout the complete cylinder range. It can achieve a rotation of more than 180 degree which allows it to pick items that are very close to the excavator. This means that the machine does not have to move back in order to pick up something that is lying close to it. The operator would rather find this to be more comfortable than driving the machine back to pick stuffs. This kind of thumb can be used for multipurpose work such as picking up heavy materials, clearing the land, clearing the forest (picking up big log), cleaning the debris after demolition. Since it allows you to pick stuffs close to you, it saves a lot of time and fuel which is otherwise spent in repositioning the machine and also makes it convenient to work in place that is space crunched.
Stick Pivot Thumb can be used both on an excavator as well as on a backhoe loader. Here the thumb rotates with the original bucket pin. In order to ensure that the thumb has a greater grip on the load, the pivot point sets the thumb tip with the bucket in such a way that during the complete bucket rotation, there is no chance of the material to set off the grip and come out of the clutch. The stick pivot thumb can be used for all the work for which one will use a progressive link thumb. However, it depends on who wants to use what.
Other than that there are also other products that are used extensively by mining and construction companies like Graptor, Jaw Bane etc. The main motto of preparing a thumb attachment is to ensure that the machine do not lose it grip while holding heavy materials and also that it is able to put them in its grip. The thumb attachments can be bought online or directly from a store that deals with accessories and they are certainly the stuff that everybody can afford to buy.
