[Jared]

That's looking real good, Jim, especially with the spinning gear. If you don't like the way the bucket hangs when dumped you can also play with the length of the drag chains. It looks like they may be a little short. I think ideally there would be a little slack in them when the bucket is fully dumped so they don't slam on the arch every time you dump.

Clam buckets are interesting to build since the geometry changes as it closes. When I designed mine I went for simplicity and looked at a lot of pictures to see how different buckets are built. Then before I started cutting metal I made a side view of the bucket and cut the parts out of cereal box cardboard and made a mockup to check the geometry so I could see if there was going to be any binding or interference with anything. I think I had to modify it a couple times before I was happy with it.