Contact Richard at email shown next:
richard@bro-tek.com. Seems to work only via email until order is placed at which point he'll furnish you a phone number.
I can see his point about only wanting to spend time with serious customers aka actual buyers, but I like talking with the person to get questions answered before spending money instead of trading emails back-and-forth.
Also has a similarly named website, Bro-Tek.Com.
We have one of his bolt-on models in service and works well.
Go ahead and obtain at the same time one of his unusually short top links used as the stiff-arm holding the thumb in place. I thought a short one would be easy to find locally and turned out it wasn't. They are findable online but less expensive to have it ship with the thumb.
Easy to install and haven't had any problems.
Like you I find welding on the dipper stick bothersome and perhaps problematic, especially at resale.
Please post back your experiences so we may all learn.
