rock raking techniques

[barneyZ]

Hi all. I've been trying to figure out how to rake rocks out of an area that I want to plant grass. I haven't been having much luck. Hopefully, someone can review my technique and let me know where I'm going wrong.

First, I use my boxblade to break up the soil. I spent quite a bit of time breaking up dirt clods so the soil is pretty fine to 6" deep. After that, I use my 3pt landscape rake. I angle it 30-45 degrees (tried both) in an attempt to 'windrow' the rocks. the rocks are baseball to softball sized river rocks. they aren't too many; I'd say 1 every 1-2 square feet in the top 6" of soil.

What happens is, I tend to get more dirt than rocks in the windrow. I was expecting the dirt to be sifted through the rake's tines and the rocks would roll out the side of the rake. when this happens, the windrow of dirt and rocks gets pretty high within 2-3 passes. I then have to pick it up with the FEL in order to continue. if the windrow were only the rocks, I could make probably 5-6 passes before needing to scoop them up.

Any suggestions?

thanks in advance,
Bryan

 

[RonMar]

With the rake angled, stand a few yards behind the tractor and get down and try looking from directly behind the tractor thru the rake tines. With the rake at an angle, the gaps between tines are probably pretty small and a good ammount of the soil is being passed from tine to tine as if it were a solid back blade. You could try:
1. Remove every other rake tine to aid the passage of smaller material when the rake is angled.
2. After several passes make up a windrow, straighten out the rake(perpendicular to line of travel) and rake down the middle of the windrow. This should break up the rock-soil mix and allow it to spread out some on the tines. This movement should allow the soil to pass between the normally spaced tines and the rocks and other larger debris should be carried along by the rake.

 

[AndyMA]

I've been using york type rakes for over 40 years. I've never removed tines adn I usually don't use guage wheels. I suggest you angle less and go faster. The tines will vibrate and most of the soil will be dropped. A york rake isn't the perfect rock removal tool. A harley powered rake is much better at windrowing rocks.

Andy

 

[DrainPondDesign]

Same problem removing the spring crop of rocks after leveling the winter ruts in our driveway with a landscape rake.

We leveled with the rake angled to move material to the center of the driveway to form a crown. With the rake angled & gauge wheels set to skim the surface we were mostly successful in moving most rocks to the center.

We then took turns sweeping the rocks into the loader bucket with a hand rake & dumping them out of the way. Some operators may be able to do this without ever leaving the tractor seat but this worked for us.

Don't forget to leave some "seed" rocks so you can harvest more next year

 

[tawilson]

You might try playing with the top link to adjust the angle the tines hit the dirt at.

 

[barneyZ]

thanks for the suggestions. The spring rains finally hit so it will be at least a week before I can get back out and try them.

Thanks again,
Bryan

 

[greg_g]

Your profile is empty, so I can't tell if your tractor has draft control or not. When windrowing rocks in loose soil, I simply set my draft control to lift before penetrating more than ~2-3 inches of soil. That significantly reduces the amount of loose dirt that ends up in your windrow.

Lacking draft control, gauge wheels or check chains can perform a similar function. If you don't have either, check chains are the considerably less expension option.

//greg//

 

[BarryinMN]

thanks for the suggestions. The spring rains finally hit so it will be at least a week before I can get back out and try them.

Thanks again,
Bryan

May be your soil is too soft - the rain will wash the dirt off rocks & firm up the dirt. If you lengthen the top link the rake will dig harder, shorten & rocks will roll out from under the rake. Like everything else take time & fine tune the process.

Pix of my rock windrower.

 

[bialecki]

I found using my 72" rake with gage wheels mounted on a Kubota B7800 I do not angle the rake, the gage wheels have the tines penetrate the soil approximately 0- 1/2". Never-the-less I still get some accumulation of soil after I complete a pass of approximately 100 feet. At the end of the pass I lift the rake and then I back blade the small pile with the FEL to smooth out the soil.