80" Landscape Rake

80\" Landscape Rake

This past winter a friend hooked me up with a fab shop where he used to work as a source for reasonably priced steel. While we were over there picking up some 10" c-channel I bought from them for a dump wagon I'm building I noticed they were cleaning the place up and had a large dumpster out back that they were tossing alot of drops and scrap in so I asked the manager if it would be ok to go dumpster diving for anything we might find useful. He said "Sure, go ahead." We wound up picking up around 750 lbs or so of steel of varoius shapes and sizes - pipe, box, plate, angle, etc.

One of the pieces was an 81" piece of 4" x 1/4" angle. I thought this would be a good piece to make a landscape rake with. So using the drill press I drilled eighty 3/8" holes in it on 2" centers to mount the rake tines, which were sourced from Agri-Supply.

In talking to another TBN'er about constructing this, he mentioned to me that this size angle is what Woods uses for their landscape rakes (at least the lighter-duty ones) and that he had recently worked on a friend's Woods rake that had gotten bent up pretty good, straightening it out. As a solution to that I decided that I would try and make mine a little less prone to bending. The difficulty was doing so and still having access to the bolts for the tines. What I did was using short sections of 4" angle to reinforce the backside of the angle the tines mounted on, making the angle a box tube in spots. While that beefed up the spots where the additional angle was welded on (and gave me a place to attach a set of gauge wheels), it didn't do anything for the spots where it wasn't, so I took some smaller angle and used that to span the open sections between the boxes. The image quality isn't the greatest but here's a picture with the 4" angle welded on and four of the eight "spanners" welded on.

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

Another shot of the tine holder from a different angle showing a little more detail. Hope it don't make ya dizzy. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

Start of the 3 point. The angle is 4" x 6" x 3/8" and the box tube is 3" x 3/16" - kinda light .... but hey it was free. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

You can see some of the additional components in the background.

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

Another angle, showing the upright for the 3 point (3"x 2" x 1/4" tube) and the angle (4" x 4" x 3/8") which will form the box for the lower link pins and some other components in the background.

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

Lookin good, keep the photo's coming. Sounds like you hit a gold mine in the dumpster /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

Big jump in progress here. The 3 point is basically complete except for capping the stubs in the rear (in front of the index plate) and adding a little bit of plate at the top link to reinforce it..

Because it was suggested to me that using 3/16" x 3" for the main tube was a little light, I used a couple of pieces of 2" x 2" x 1/4 box tube running back at an angle from the lower bar on the 3 point to the rear to hopely prevent any twisting. The rear of the box tube where the index plate is also has two pieces 3" x 1/4" angle welded around it to beef it up.

The index plate was made from 1/2" plate and the hole for the pivot pin is 2". The index plate is drilled for angles of 0°, 20º, 40° if memory serves me correctly. This probably should have been 0°, 15º, & 30° but it seemed to me at the time that this would have not left enough metal between the holes as I would have liked, given the diameter of the circle I was using. ..... in hindsight ...... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

Another angle. The pin mount for the top link is set forward from the upright so that I could use a Quick-Hitch - it's basically a guess ..... since I don't have a Quick-Hitch yet. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

Last one of the 3 point from another angle.

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

I used a piece of 2" x 6" cold rolled steel for the pivot pin. Image shows the pivot pin welded to the angle adjustment pin plate and ready to be welded to the tine holder.

I drilled a 2" hole in the angle pin adjustment plate and then welded the pin on the bottom side (slightly recessed) This in turn, was welded to a piece of 4" x 4" angle which will be welded to the tine holder. I drilled a 1 1/32" hole (biggest S & D bit I had) in 4" x 4" angle so that I could weld the 4" x 4" angle directly to the pin, as well as welding it on the sides to the angle pin adjustment plate.

Re: 80\" Landscape Rake

The pivot pin assembly from the other side.