I put the rake on my 35hp Century
CUT yesterday and put a few hours on it. Since I've never had a rake before, never used one before and have never seen anybody else use one, it was a bit of a learning experience.
I had to get the angle ajusted just right. Flat didn't give me enough preasure or movement when I went over high spots. The rake would just lift off the ground and dump what I had in it. Too much angle and it was more of a plow then a rake. Just a bit above flat seemed to work the best.
The tines did a fantastic job of collecting sticks. It also doesn't collect dirt, but with the three point hitch pushed all the way down, the tines do dig into the ground niceley. I like that!!! It also thins out the weeds and really does a nice job of preping my dirt. Another nice suprise.
At 3 inch centers, I do loose a few smaller sticks, but nothing I can't live with. What's nice about the spacing is I can really knock down some of the dozer tracks and small windrows the blade makes. Just turning the dozer does a number on the ground, so it's nice to be able to quickly and easily smooth those rough spots over.
The length is nice to reach in under the trees and tough to get to spots, but it doesn't help in any way the amount of material I can collect. It just spills out the sides when it gets full. I'm thinking about putting some sides on it. Not sure how yet, but there are several options.
One problem I had was after about five minutes, a tine busted. It must have been defective because it was the only one to break.
I kept thinking about being able to swivel it and how that would help. For the life of me, I just can't imagine how it would. I pulled it straight and in big circles. I pulled it in figure 8's and sometimes tight circles. It holds everything in it except a little comes out on the inside of the turn. Not much, but enough to tell where the turn was. If I could change the angle, it would have to be done at every turn, and to me that is way more effort than loosing a very small amount of debri. Especially since I can pick up that debri on the next pass.
I'm extremely pleased and suprised at how nice it is to have. It's really turned out to a must have impliment!!!
Thank you to everyone who offered advice, both in this thread and in the older threads I read when researching this project.
First picture is of the rake on the back of my
CUT.
Second and third pics are of the rake full of debri.
Fourth pic is my field after I raked it.
Fifth pic is of the busted tine.
Eddie