Homemade landscape and trail rake

[Renze]

Hmmm.... looking at your offset swing arm, i wondered what kind of tractor you have.... your 4100 will have to try very, very hard to break that swing arm..

I'll follow your progress as i want to make a rotating and swinging scraper blade, and your swing arm design gives me some new inspiration... I had my co worker at the company curve me a nice moldboard last spring, but i havent had time to begin the actual work on it yet.
A landscape rake is of no interest in our sandy Dutch stone-less soil, but i think you are making pretty much the same as i want, just with a rake instead of a full blade.

 

[jimgerken]

OK, I updated my profile. But still the 2520 would have to work very hard to bend that swingarm. Especially with a landscape rake mounted on it. But I think its about correct. My design originally used all 2x5x0.188" tubing, but then I found these other sizes in the junkyard, so I modified the plan a bit. The sizes selected sort of evolved from the pipe sizes. Some parts may be overbuilt, but that's ok. I will still have to add 60-80 pounds of weight to get it to the full digging potential. Weight brackets on the tine bar are part of the plan. If anything in the main frame or swingarm frame flexed or twisted, it would quickly tear apart from the forces from the hydraulic cylinder locked in there and binding on its pivots. I have been carefull to have no mechanical stops anywhere, only the cylinder stroke limit will stop it in each direction.

I am getting a good idea, after reading your post (thanks!). I was expecting to slide the shaft welded to the tine bar up into the rear of the swingarm, and weld a ring on the top. I am now wondering if I should make it slide in and have something clamp or bolt in place to hold it in, so it could be changed out for a blade, or other stuff. ?Hmmm...

 

[jimgerken]

Main frame final welded complete, and tine bar milled. 62 holes, 7/16 inch diameter, for 1.25 inch wide tines on a 2.5 inch pitch. Two more pics...

 

[jimgerken]

Last night I cut the 3-point pin mount brackets, and the cylinder-end brackets on the NC plasma cutter. Some of these were made of 5/8 inch flat, the thickest I have ever NC cut. Had to run as slow as 7 inches per minute, but the results are quite nice. They have the usual 6 degree bevel, which becomes quite noticeable on a 5/8 thick part, but are otherwise kinda pretty. Very nice cut finish, and the dross (slag) just knocked off with a hammer. Sorry, no pics this time.

 

[MikesTractor]

jimgerkin, you said:

I am getting a good idea, after reading your post (thanks!). I was expecting to slide the shaft welded to the tine bar up into the rear of the swingarm, and weld a ring on the top. I am now wondering if I should make it slide in and have something clamp or bolt in place to hold it in, so it could be changed out for a blade, or other stuff. ?Hmmm...

Here are a couple of sketches that I drew in MS Paint just to sort of get my idea on paper.

I built this blade about 1 1/2 years ago and it worked great. You could pull one cylinder pin and 2 bolts and change from blade to rake (or something else?) in just a few minutes.

I loaned this blade/rake combo to my brother when he built his new house and haven't gotton it back yet (5 hour drive round trip). I'm planning to see him Christmas so maybe I'll get it then.

Anyway, I built mine with hydraulic angle and sideshift. As I said, everything worked great, but I like your design on the swing arm better than mine. The one I built has a swing arm made of 4" x 6" x 1/4" rectangular tubing (read HEAVY). The tubing was turned with the 6" dimension vertical to improve strength. I made the swing arm long enough so tha I could rotate the blade/rake to push backward if I wanted to.

The sketch only shows 1 arm on the blade for the angle cylinder to connect to, but I added another one on the other side so when the blade was reversed, you could still control the blade with hydraulics. This arm is part of the pivot plate that is attached to the blade/rake assembly.

Hope this makes sense.

Mike

 

[jimgerken]

Mike, thanks for the idea on the bolt-down-thru method. The timing couldnt be better, thats the next thing I build.
This weekend I was able to get the 3-pt pin mount plates drilled and welded in place, the trunion cylinder fixed-end fitting cut out, drilled and tacked on, and the tine bar cap welded to the bar. With no hoses on the cylinder, and all pins installed, and rake assembly mounted onto Speeco quick hitch, I could move the swingarm mechanism full stroke to see how the range worked out. Surprise! it has two inches MORE range than I had predicted, all the extra range ocurring to the right side (perfect). I guess the cylinder has 9.5 inches of stroke instead of the advertised 9 inches. Pics...

 

[RonMar]

Now THAT is a rake mount!

Nice use of the trunion cylinders. Keep the pics comming

 

[MikesTractor]

I second what Ron said! I wish I had thought of that when I built mine.

Hope the idea with the swivel post helps. It works pretty good. When I built mine, I built it as a 6 foot rake. I had an older 5 foot scrape that I bought at an auction. The frame was in poor shape so I modified the blade to work with my new rake frame.

When (if) I get it back from my brother, I will try to post some pics.

Good luck with your rake.
Mike

 

[bx23barry]

Man I thought I over built stuff. You are the king! Excellent!

 

[mjncad]

Excellent work Jim! I hope you powder coat it when you are done as something with that much effort into it deserves a nice finish...even if some of it gets worn off from use.