hi gl with your project i just completed mine!! a half acre pond here in northern ontario with my 450 b jd crawler loader i went down to 15 ft deep on roughly 30% of the pond the rest 5 to 10ft deep ,i never broke through clay dont think its gonna leak very much lol!!! it took me about two months to complete yes a solid two months !! the key is to only cut 3 or 4 inches at a time, try and bite more and you will end up with a mess having to raise your bucket when machine bogs,thus creating a very rough working platform,more even your working suface easier to operate way more effecient ,you will need a lot of patience it is very slow going but this machine does have its advatages too, fall was approaching and so was the rain!!! not many machines can go down in the bassin of a pond and scoop mud and hall it out 100ft !! mine doesnt have the hoe im sure this would slow it down in mud a bit ,but it might help you get out if you do get stuck, is taking it off an option ?some are not too bad to remove, after a rainfall id pump out the all the water i could then scoop out the mud . The mud was up to 18 inches deep at some places
after a good rain broken up clay soaks up water and turns to mud very quickly!! ! No problem , cut straight into it back up and haul away start at one spot and work from there till its all gone then you start carving again ! slow very slow to move material but you can complete project from start to finish with one piece of heavy equipment!! tracks are hard to beat for traction !! never got stuck i have a very good clay base that was a bonus i was very happy with its overall performance! gl again Brian
