Rake Landscape rake - will it do what I want?

Boiler74 · Apr 1, 2004

I'm wondering if a landscape rake will help me with a project. I cleaning up an overgrown Christmas tree farm - 14 acres worth. Hasn't been taken care of in over ten years. There are open areas, but also several large stands. Many of the trees are dead or overgrown, and many need to come down. Mixed in are fallen trees, limbs, and a variety of nasty bushes, including multiflora rose.

So I'm starting to clean this up - hoping to build a house next year. As I cut the trees, clear the bushes, etc., I'm getting a lot of small stuff that I don't want to walk around and pick up by hand. Would be a lot of work. Will a landscape rake work for this? Can I drag all this stuff into a pile and burn them? It seems like it would work, but would hate to spend several hundred dollars to find that I can't. So if any of you have done this type of work, I'd appreciate your opinion. Thanks.

AndyMA · Apr 1, 2004

A landscape rake won't pull much out but it will pile up the kind of stuff you are talking about. I have a heavy duty (about $1400) Ford rake and have done this type of work many times and never lost a tine. You will end up pulling out a lot of brush from the teeth by hand. The lighter duty rakes probably will not enjoy this work as much and break / bend teeth and not do as good a job. To make burning piles I usually pull the brush piles into a big ring and then swing the rake 180 degrees and back into the piles to make the burning pile. You can't really effectively drive over the pile.

Andy

greg_g · Apr 1, 2004

Question for Andy

I'm about to buy a 7 foot LD rake myself, and was concerned about your "bend/break" comment. Sounds like my rocky hillside pasture may challenge the tine integrity. Do you think a piece of flat iron welded horizontally across the tines - maybe midway on the curve - might prolong tine life?

//greg//

BXMMCC · Apr 2, 2004

I don't think you would want to weld the tines - they are made of springy type steel, and I think that you would mess them up with the heat.

I'm surprised how far mine bend and still spring back.

Henro · Apr 2, 2004

Greg,

You may want to see that you really have a problem before you try to fix it.

When I was looking for a rake last year, one dealer I spoke with mentioned that there were a lot of rakes out there, but only a few tine manufacturers.

His point being that a cheaper rake may have one thing in common with an expensive, better made one. The tines!

I don't know how true this is, but it does seem reasonable. Well...possible?

AndyMA · Apr 2, 2004

Greg and Henro

I'm sure you're right on the tines. I have several spare tines for my rake and they are about twice as wide and twice as thick as the light duty rakes. Also longer. The overall 7' rake probably weighs 700 to 800 lbs. I would not weld the tines as I'm sure you would take the temper out of them.
Mine have bent out several inches and sprung right back. I bought my rake in 1987 and it has several hundred hours use. I guess the reason I've never broken a tine is because I bought spares... /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Andy

SPIKER · Apr 2, 2004

ANDY:

it is inevitable that if you buy spares you will neverneed them be it for tines, blades or cahine ect. but buy one thing with out the spares and you will need 20 more parts the first time you use it! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif just a fact of life /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif lol

Mark M /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

greg_g · Apr 2, 2004

Thanks all......guess this is one of those things best left alone till the probably actually (if ever) occurs.

//greg//

KiotiJohn · Apr 2, 2004

Boiler, between my economy landscape rake and FEL with toothbar, I've been able to clean up a lot of piles like you mention. The landscape rake can be adjusted with the top link to be aggressive or not and will do a good job of grabbing up all the crap you need to clean up. I find even the cheap economy rake I'm using does a good job. The only tines I've broken (2) were because I backed into trees when working in tight areas. Even an expensive rake probably wouldn't have faired well under those shearing pressures. You can pick up an economy rake for around $350 more or less. John

Poncho · Apr 2, 2004

Boiler74.... I bought a new 7' Landscape rake from NH to do the same thing... cleared about 7 acres. The one I have has individually bolted on steel tines. With all the tines in it barely breaks the top soil... kinda skims across the top. After I got most of the top stuff up I would remove every other 2 and would get better ground penetration. The tines have never bent... they are 1" wide and about 3/8" thick. I've also dropped the scarifier teeth on my box blade all the way down and screwed the top link in all the way so the teeth would penetrate the ground and not wind up filling the box. Then I would go back over with the rake. I found it best to pull the rake at a slight angle to spread the raked stuff across the tines.... if I didn't then everything would clump in the middle and and push the rake up.