5' or 6' Rock Rake for 1500D

[VT_Hokie]

5\' or 6\' Rock Rake for 1500D

I need to clean up about 8 ac of land that was cleared by dozers and was wondering what size rake should I get? The land is not really "Rocky" but covered with various sticks and roots that I want to collect and take to the burn piles. I will also use it to work the ground before seeding and potentially on the driveway as well. On the impliment forum, some prefer using a rake on the driveway vs. a boxscraper, which I already have and used on it. Comments???

 

[Onthesauk]

Re: 5\' or 6\' Rock Rake for 1500D

I've got a boxblade, 7 foot blade and a 7 foot rake that I use with a 1500. Have reached the point where I use the rake almost exclusively, probably because much of the property is pretty much finished now. Works well for dragging the driveway and smoothing out ground for planting grass. But 8 acres is a pretty good chunk. Going to take you awhile.

 

[loaderbob]

Re: 5\' or 6\' Rock Rake for 1500D

VT,
Sounds like a great project! On a 1500, I would be a little more conservative. I would go with a 5ft personally and 6 ft would be the maximum. Also remember that the advantage of the 1500's size is it fits in smaller spaces. If you are always going to use it is wide open spaces then it does not matter as much, but if you are navigating through the woods the small implement is better. If your tractor has a loader that willl act as good counterweight. If not you will need to load up on some suitcase weights up front.

Best Regards!
Bob

 

[Adron]

Re: 5\' or 6\' Rock Rake for 1500D

Pardon my ignorance, and I hope this isn't too far off topic, but cleaning rocks, sticks and roots off of 8 recently bulldozed acres is leaving me a bit confused. Even with a 7' rake it is going to take a long time just to go over the area. When you rake the rocks, doesn't it just move them from point a to point b just a short ways, or perhaps into a sort of windrow? You still have to pick up the rocks...? With a box blade wouldn't you just fill in the low spots with the rocks that had accumulated inside the box? Are we talking about ¼" diameter rocks or Missouri type rocks the size of your fist? Just a little confused...PM would be ok.
Thanks, /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[VT_Hokie]

Re: 5\' or 6\' Rock Rake for 1500D

Thanks for the input so far guys, would like to hear more posts from rake users, I will get a little more specific on what I am trying to do and share a little bit of what I have done. I am using a 1500D, as in 15hp at pto, D as 4WD and a FEL (that is the fun thing that goes on the front) /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif. My tires are not filled. I have used this tractor to bushhog with a 4' deck and it as worked great on the existing trails, but to clear the 8 ac of all the thickets and such was up to a tracked unit as anything with wheels was just going to get tore up. Anyway the dozer came and cleared off half the land and put a new road of clay in from the existing old farm road leading in. All done in a day and a half until we hit the tail end of one of the those tropical storms a month or so back which then the dozer went bye bye. This left me with half of the land cleared all the way (except for small stuff) and the other half that needs to be pushed in burn piles.

So what have I done?

I have used my 5' box scraper to:

1) de hump the old farm road
2) cover over the pipes on the new road the contractor put in.
3) run the grade in the ditches from the pipes
4) get rid of all those dozer tracks on the road, and make it as smooth as a baby's bottom before having the rock dropped.

So right now I have a road of 57's, don't know what they are called in your neck of the woods but they are anywhere from 1 to 3 in long, ie big gravel that will be topped with Crusher Run the 1/4 in stuff mixed with some clay. So right now, as it has rained again I am pushing the 57's down with my truck but will still have a hump in some parts of the road.

Comming back to Adron's question, the boxscraper does a wonder job with with small size material, but when you run into fist size rocks or such there is a tendency for one to hit a depression-get stuck then the blade will ride up over the rock causing the rest of the material to dump at the height of the rock, or worse the rock will roll under the the blade and dump what you have in the box. This is also true with sticks. So my line of thought was that a rake would work better with the 57's I have on the road right now and I would be able to to use it to gather the material on the rest of the land that dozer has not pushed in the burn piles.

To further Adron's questions, yes a rake will only drag material to a place or if at and angle, make a windrow of sorts. I hope that after making a windrow that I will drag it to the burn pile and shove it in with the FEL. I am not really worried about rocks as this was pretty good pasture land 30-40 years ago and really don't see any on the surface. To translate what the contractor said in PC terms, "You should get about 20 immigrant works to stand shoulder to shoulder and walk the land and pick up everything as you will not be able to get a local to do that type of work". Since in my area that type of solution is not possible and I do to want to fiddle with local contractors that won't come out until Dec, I have to put the Yanmar to work! Pasture planting is Sept 1 around here!

So to tackle another of Adron's questions on doing 8 ac with a rake here are some numbers assuming an acre is 208 by 208 feet.....

Without overlap, 1 ac of land will take the following passes:

5' rake: 42passes or 8,652 total linear feet
6' rake: 35 passes or 7,196 TLF
7' rake: 30 passes or 6,180 TLF

So for dragging at 1 mph that is:

5' rake: 1.63 hrs or 13 for 8 ac
6' rake: 1.36 hrs or 11 for 8 ac
7' rake: 1.17 hrs or 9.4 for 8 ac

As I have learned with any capital project you need to at least double the cost and double the time, so with a 5' rake I am looking at 26-30 hrs of time.

Any thoughts?

 

[Adron]

Re: 5\' or 6\' Rock Rake for 1500D

Thank you for taking the time to so thoroughly answer my questions. It now makes sense. How ever you cut it 30+ hrs is still quite a job...If it can be done in one pass (or 2 using your doubled figures). I understand now the use of the rock rake/box blade on the road. I'm sure that will work quite well.

On my place there were 2 large rock piles. I'm told that the farmer who lived here around the turn of the century (1899-1900, not 1999) had 4 daughters and they were solely responsible for the rock piles. No further comments on that! There are still oldtimers in the area that remember the family (not 1899, but the family lived there for many more years. I bought my place from one of the decendents).

Anyway, in the absence of willing (or impressed) workers, making a windrow using the rake, then the frontloader sounds like next best answer.

Thanks, and good luck. With your attention to detail, I'm sure it will work out fine.