Rake How effective are rakes?

[dex3361]

I used and bent a TSC landscape rake so make sure and get a stout one. That aside they do a good job of raking up loose debris and rock. If the rake picks up to much soil you can remove every other tine to get mostly big stuff then add the tines back in to get the fines. This was a recommendation that I read here on TBN. Lots of good advice to be found here on TBN.:thumbsup:

 

[Small farm guy]

I have been slowly clearing and converting 11 overgrown creek bottom acres into pasture land the past 2 years. I have been doing the exact type of cleaning you are looking at. I have a 6 foot york rake (Bush hog brand). It does a good job of snagging and dragging limbs and cut brush and junk. I also used it today as a poor man's cultipacker. I tilled the garden yesterday to prep for planting the fall garden. Tiller does a great job but the soil is too fluffy for planting. I read on here somewhere to turn the tines around backward and drag the tilled area. Sure enough, it made a nice firm planting bed and also levelled out any ridges the tiller left. Thanks for the tip, whoever it was on TBN!

Joel

 

[XSKIER]

Here is couple of pictures of my rake setup. The first shows the nice tweak I've developed in the last three months. Upon further inspection it looks as though the rake bar is still straight, but the frame itself has the tweak.

I fell a long since dead tree into the road, and of course it exploded on impact. I needed to get the road cleared quickly, so I used the rake to pull all of the twigs into my driveway. Now I could pick them up without having to fear getting run over by a car. Normally I just drag the twigs to a burn pile, turn around, and "doze" them into the pile by backing up. I think this is what you're trying to do.

 

[DwightD123]

I just got a rake this weekend. I may have expected too much but was a bit dissapointed in the job it did. Lots of limbs gettng snagged in the tines and seemed like it took several passes to get a good cleanup. Maybe I need to practice some more or adjust differently..time will tell. I was going to order one from Everything Attachments but they sure didn't want to take the time to sell me one so I just went down to TSC and got one there. Seems pretty sturdy but I am sure I will break or bend something...I just do that. All in all it seems like a good landscaping tool and maybe with some practice I will be more happy with it as a cleanup tool.

 

[2manyrocks]

Don't expect the same finish job you'd get from hand raking. If you had to pick up a bunch of limbs by hand, you'd quickly develop an appreciation for your tractor rake even though it's not 100% tidy. I used mine to clean up an area that had been logged, and the rake broke the ground up enough that I was able to seed it and get a good stand of grass growing pretty quickly. I think you'll be pleased if you give it a chance.

 

[jmc]

The other is the design of the wheels. If you look at a picture of a yellow York rake you will see that the vertical shaft that the wheel turns on, comes down almost in front of the wheel. It has no choice but to caster. The vertical shaft on the Everything rake comes down almost on top of the wheel. The axil is only a couple inches behind the vertical shaft. You try to make a turn, the wheel stays turned when you straighten out and then plows a nice half moon furrow down each side of the rake as you move forward.

Off topic but that sounds like my Woods brushbull. One thing that helped is keeping that pivot shafted lubed. Still, it looks like it needs more castor.

 

[rambler]

I just got a rake this weekend. I may have expected too much but was a bit dissapointed in the job it did. Lots of limbs gettng snagged in the tines and seemed like it took several passes to get a good cleanup. Maybe I need to practice some more or adjust differently..time will tell. I was going to order one from Everything Attachments but they sure didn't want to take the time to sell me one so I just went down to TSC and got one there. Seems pretty sturdy but I am sure I will break or bend something...I just do that. All in all it seems like a good landscaping tool and maybe with some practice I will be more happy with it as a cleanup tool.

Just the nature of the beast. If you go do it by hand, you will go back to appreciating what the rake actually is doing for you....

If you hand rake it, look how often one has to pull the rake over an area to get it cleaned up. You have to stop often to load away the debris that piles up.

Same with a 3pt landscape rake - it is doing a lot, even if it seems slow & it jams up with debris a lot and it doesn't do a perfect job of cleannig up.

It's still getting the job done. Just don't expect perfection on the first pass - or even the 5th pass. Cleanup is messy & imperfect, but better than doing it by hand.

They do tend to jam up with longer sticks and roots.

--->Paul

 

[nickel plate]

I have to ask though, in your land info you say you are dealing with "417 feet square", your not talking square feet are you? If so I would use a hand rake. Our bedroom is a bit bigger than that.

MarkV

As it is written and given that one acre = 43,560 square feet:
417' x 417' = 173,889sf divided by 43,560sf = 3.99 acres.

 

[MarkV]

As it is written and given that one acre = 43,560 square feet:
417' x 417' = 173,889sf divided by 43,560sf = 3.99 acres.

Thanks, I got it now. Never heard it put that way before.

MarkV

 

[bjr]

I've a 6' KK rake and I use it for tumble weeds a other weeds and keep getting a lot of dirt mixed in the mess. The dirt filled weed pile was very hard to get the weed separated from. I kept playing with the top link to get the rake angle to sort of float over the dirt surface and still collect the loose weeds. My two cents is to play with forward to back tilt the top link provides and see if that helps. bjr