frizzen, Zabco & Blender,
Thanks for your positive comments. The bucket was made of steel and brass as these implements use their weight to do the digging. My bucket weighs in at a scale weight of just over 5 pounds ( which scales up pretty much to the actual bucket's weight of 8,400 pounds). The sheave arrange ment yiels a 6:1 ratio so 5/6th of the bucket's weight or roughly 4.2 pounds of downward force is exerted as the bucket closes. While the bucket can not dig in hardpan it certainly can dig into moist top soil and of course in sand. The rocks lifted in the video weighed 3 to 4 pounds.
Regarding the rivets, they are purely there for esthetics and do pretty much reflect the position of the real bucket's rivets, I purchased them from Godshalls Custom Machining (
https://godshallscustommachining.com...ead-scale-size).
Thanks again for watching.
BEST,
tgglider