Rake Usefullness of Landscape Rake?

[Ches]

Been looking at various landscape rakes and wonder how usefule they might be in helping me clean up a wood lot. I've been cutting brush, mostly removing anything less than 4 inches. Would like to go in and clean up smaller debris that is on the ground. I've seen where the landscape rake appears to be more for leveling gravel, cleaning cleared lots, etc. How usefull would one be to go in the woods with the tractor and "rake" debris out (space between trees permitting)?
Also, would pallet forks (clamped on to the loader bucket) be useful, and most economical attachment, for moving brush piles to a location for burning?
Thanks

Ches

 

[Bird]

Ches, I haven't ever used one of the rakes, but sure think I'd like to have one occasionally. But I do sometimes put my pallet forks on the bucket to move brush. That works pretty well.

Bird

 

[MChalkley]

Ches - Rakes work pretty well, especially if you turn them around so you can push backing up. Then you don't have to drive over the stuff first.

Pallet forks work better on big stuff and not as well on smaller stuff.

Mark

PS - My mind is going: I have to keep editing posts this morning because I'm forgetting things.

I really like the bolt-on toothbar for clearing brush, especially if you don't have too many big rocks or stumps. You can let it just barely skim the surface and the brush piles up in the bucket. When it works, it's very fast, but it works in less situations than a rake, because of the forgiveness of the spring tines on the rake.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by MChalkley on 7/27/00 10:42 AM.</FONT></P>

 

[Thomas]

Ches,
The York model RI might fit your needs??
The website is www.yorkmodern.com
Stay safe and be/w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif


Thomas..NH

 

[Keoke]

Mark, I agree with you completly on the rake vs tooth bar for moving brush.
The one problem I have when using my tooth bar is that the teeth are to far apart (8 inches between teeth) this allows a lot of the small stuff to slip through.
I have been thinking of adding additional teeth in between the existing teeth. This would give about 4 inch spacing between teeth.
I know this would be better for pushing brush.
But, what would be the downside, if any, when using the bucket for just plain digging?

 

[W5FL]

You aren't going to like this, but using the bucket teeth for digging is a recipe for disaster. Sooner or later, you are going to ruin a cylinder or break a mounting bolt. Loaders are not designed for digging. Use scarfiers on a box blade to dig and use the loader to pick it up.

I would think the only downside to more teeth is cost. I think I would prefer the 8 in spacing as it lets the little stuff (rocks and dirt) fall out and keeps the limbs where you want them.

 

[MChalkley]

Keoke - My teeth have 6" spacing between them. In addition to cost, which Wen mentioned, putting on more teeth decreases the force available for digging because it's spread across more area. This is the real reason that teeth are an improvement over a straight edge when digging. All the force of the tractor is concentrated on the points of the teeth until the edge of the bucket hits the material, by which time the teeth have broken it up enough that the edge will usually push in, too. So, you need enough teeth to break up the material all the way across, and any more hurts rather than helps.

By the way, perhaps Wen's objection to "digging" with the loader is more a matter of semantics than anything else. Most of the digging I do with my loader is really just pushing the bucket into a material pile, though often the material pile is fill or topsoil and pretty hard: whereas the plain bucket is very hard to get into the pile, the addition of the toothbar makes the process much less stressful to the tractor, loader, me, etc. Now, I agree with Wen on this: Using the loader to actually dig into packed soil, especially when it contains stumps, large rocks, etc, without breaking it up by taking small slices at a time, is very hard on the equipment.

Mark

 

[Keoke]

Yeah Wen, I know the bucket is not a bulldozer blade. I take it slow and easy when working the hard stuff.
Mark, the 6 inch spacing on your bucket teeth sounds just about right. I wish mine was at the same spacing in instead of 8 inches. Putting a tooth in the middle and going to a bit less then 4 inches makes no sense now. Cutting the present teeth loose and moving them over to 6 inch spacing makes no sense now either. Best to find these kinda things out before and not after buying the product.
By the way guys, Keoke is Hawaiian for George. Of course somebody beat me to "George" in the user name chase, so in went Keoke.

regards,
george

 

[Hawgee]

Check out the grapple on the front of this little Case tractor.
http://209.24.94.181/index.htm/used.htm
I'd go with the Rock,Landscape rake on the rear and the grapple on the front with tooth bar. All that should be left on the ground would be too small to worry over.

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

[MChalkley]

George - I wouldn't lose too much sleep over the tooth spacing. It's not likely to make a whole lot of difference in cleaning up brush. I like to use it to collect the larger stuff, and the green branches, but the broken, dry stuff is going to escape almost anything except perhaps a landscape rake. And they'll rot away in a few weeks anyway.

Mark