Landscape rake angled use...how often.

[LouNY]

J's we had mostly C's and a couple of B's in Country with VMA-211 saw D's when I was getting out.

As far as your original question I'm not a big fan of york rakes, when I do use one it almost always angled.
They do move and separate rocks out , I prefer a back blade for dressing out roadways quite often I'll use it backwards to slick up gravel and finish dress roads. Pulling it set at an angle and backwards it will move gravel and fill minor ruts while compacting the surface a bit.

 

[AGTtactical]

Thanks Brian...no weights yet. I did get the brush guard which is designed to add weights to, so will be easy to add them. Or maybe wheel weights would be better. Thanks for suggesting that.

You really think I should get a 96" rake huh? Why? I'm a little concerned that if I find I don't want to angle it...say to pull brush straight forward, I won't be able to fit through tight spots in between our trees. Angled I might end up dumping debris along the edges of trees instead of being able to drag them into the open. Then again, even not angled, its only one foot outside of my wheels. I know it seems a simple thing, but I really don't know if I'll find more use using it angled, where I'd need a 96" to cover my tracks angles, or an 84", which might let me into tighter places.

But then again, its only a foot on each side. Sorry to bug you again, but I do value your opinion.

 

[AGTtactical]

J's we had mostly C's and a couple of B's in Country with VMA-211 saw D's when I was getting out.
As far as your original question I'm not a big fan of york rakes, when I do use one it almost always angled.
They do move and separate rocks out , I prefer a back blade for dressing out roadways quite often I'll use it backwards to slick up gravel and finish dress roads. Pulling it set at an angle and backwards it will move gravel and fill minor ruts while compacting the surface a bit.

Wow, old school. Did your A-4s have the white nuclear flash curtain behind the ejection seat? Our J models did. Crazy huh...fly to the target at 480 kts, high loft to dump your nuke, 180 degree turn to egress, get on the instruments and pull the flash curtain over your head to save yourself from burns and loss of vision, hoping that during the bomb's one minute or so TOF, you'd be at least 8 miles away when the nuke went off. That was the theory anyhow.

Rake: good stuff! How much angle? 45? 30?
BTW, I see you have an Oliver!! I grew up using an Oliver 70 until the Democrats came and took our farm to make it into a park. Looked exactly like this one: View attachment 601354

 

[JohnnyMX]

I have an EA 7 foot rake. I angle it when it needs to be angled and use it straight when that is what I'm after. I haven't had any issues with breaking or bending tines due to this. Often I am also using the gauge wheels like this when I'm trying to just skim the yard on each side of the drive to pull some of the winter rock back onto the driveway before running the land plane. In dirt work, I angle and forget it if doing any windowing etc. to remove rock. The only reason I've limited my angle so far is the spring action on the rocks. I'm not trying to pull them from one side of the drive and have them shoot off into the grass on the other

 

[JJT]

My 25 year old heavy 7' Lienbach rake has gauge wheels. I frequently use it fully angles, probably close to 45 degrees. I've never bent or broken a tine.

 

[Saucymynx]

A local farmer was over at my place helping me out with a hay baler and he saw my 7 foot Homestead pinnacle rake. He asked if I ever used it turned around backwards to grade a driveway. He said it works great that way. I tried that out tonight and he was absolutely right. I made two passes each way with it angled 45° facing forward to break things up and then ran back over it once each way with the blade at 90° but turned backwards. It left a wonderfully smooth surface and I still had the crown. It would chatter a little bit now and then but left a very smooth surface

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

I have a cheap King Kutter 7' rake. I've had it for (5?) years. Sometimes I rake with it straight, and sometimes I rake with it angled. For the driveway I angle it to windrow rocks to the side, or pull gravel from the edge, back to the center. In fields if I'm raking, it's usually straight. I've never broken anything or bent any tines, but if you got really crazy with it I suppose you could?

I mean it's a rake. It rakes stuff. I think I paid $400 for it when I bought it, but I guess the price has skyrocketed since then. I'm glad I bought the 84" rake, as even on the first angle position it will still cover my 74" tractor width. If I'm angling it, it's usually just on the first angled hole. If I need to squeeze through a gate, I can go one more hole to increase the angle and it's now narrower than my tractor. If I try one more angle hole, it's into the rear tire on the tractor.

 

[Birdhunter1]

I used my landscape rake just the other day to go around my horse arena where the dirt has built a ridge around the perimeter from everytime I have worked it to put the dirt back in the arena so it won't have the ridge to hold water in. More often than not I just use it straight across to rake up horse turds and waste hay that is in the barn lot or in the feed yard.

 

[Boeing]

This is true, you did not post about the tines breaking. My point was that about every implement manufacturer that builds landscape rakes builds the units to angle 45*. If breaking tines was a problem due to operating at steeper angles, don't you think that they would not build the units to angle that far?

Did the dealer back up the grapple bending, or what was their response?

I have also found that it is very common for people to use their implements in an unintended way. Good or bad, if the implement is not engineered to be used in a way that some might do so, then some sort of failure should not be unexpected.

Good luck with your ultimate decision.

I bought a "Sun Burst".....(Sun rise, Sun something) Box scraper about 10 years ago. I had 6 diggers or tines or whatever ou call those extending diggers. I use it on my rock/root littered field. EVERYDAY one or more diggers would catch and BEND/TWIST. I took the diggers to a machine shop where they tried to vice and bend them back into shape. (I asked about using a torch and they said it would destroy the steels tension) anyway, they were aboe to mostly straighten two but two others snapped like a twig. My response here deals with quality of products.....was I misusing it? I didn't think so. I ordered 6 replacement diggers at about $40 each. and only extend the diggers about 2" into the dirt now. Live,pay and learn......

 

[Vigo327]

I don't think you were misusing it, unless you were going too fast with the tractor itself. It seems more likely that the ripper shanks (that's the usual term for them) were made too thin or of the wrong type of metal, at least for the size of tractor that was pulling them. I know I couldn't bend one my rippers with my tiny tractor if i tried. I don't remember how thick they are but they do come in different thicknesses. I think mine are 3/4".

Was it a small box blade like 48 or 54"? I have seen some of the smallest box blades come with rippers which look like they were cut out of plate steel (the usual ones are forged). I have no doubt those things twist VERY easily if hooked to a decent tractor. Usually those are only ~1/2" thick, while the forged ones are usually 5/8" (lighter duty) and 3/4" thick (everything else).