Rake New Landscape Rake
- Thread starter TxBilly
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Redfisher
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- Mar 25, 2002
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- Fergus, Ontario,Canada
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- Cub Cadets 104,129,149, Jinma 284
Looks like a nice little rake,On a nice little tractor/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
BeeBop
Silver Member
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- Jan 4, 2002
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- Louisburg NC
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- 02 Kubota L-4610 HST w/4in1 bucket & R-4s
Looks like a very nice outfit you have there. That rake should bring you many yrs of bliss 
rancar
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- JD425 lawn tractor; JD4710 CUT; JD JX75 Walk Behind
Bill,
<font color=blue>Got a landscape rake with guage wheels </font color=blue>
Do you find the wheels necessary in the finishing work that you do? I just bought a Frontier LR1172 medium duty rake for a JD4710. I had the option of going with gauge wheels at $250 extra. I couldn't justify the expense on this. Never have known anyone using these wheels who couldn't do the same work without them. Your thoughts or anyone's thoughts on this please.
Regards,
Bob Ancar
Cambridge, NY
<font color=blue>Got a landscape rake with guage wheels </font color=blue>
Do you find the wheels necessary in the finishing work that you do? I just bought a Frontier LR1172 medium duty rake for a JD4710. I had the option of going with gauge wheels at $250 extra. I couldn't justify the expense on this. Never have known anyone using these wheels who couldn't do the same work without them. Your thoughts or anyone's thoughts on this please.
Regards,
Bob Ancar
Cambridge, NY
My experience is that gauge wheels make it a whole lot easier to do a good job with a landscape rake. Without them the rake tends to either dig in too much or come completely out of the ground when the surface is unlevel. You are constantly moving the hitch position to try to compensate for this as much as possible. Although some hitch position adjustment is required when a rake has gauge wheels, it is not nearly as much as that required with wheeless rakes. Most rakes are sold without wheels as standard equipment in order to keep the price as low a possible. There have been several threads in the past discussing this issue. I believe it was Von who reported on the improvement he found after equipping his rake with wheels. He has posted several photos showing his design and how the whole rake folds up neatly for storage.
Bob
I found that the wheels allowed me to "level" the dirt better. You can put the 3pt in float and the wheels will keep it at the height you want based on how you have them adjusted and will keep it level from side to side. I don't know if I could have gotten the results I wanted without them. Attached is a picture of some of the area.
I found that the wheels allowed me to "level" the dirt better. You can put the 3pt in float and the wheels will keep it at the height you want based on how you have them adjusted and will keep it level from side to side. I don't know if I could have gotten the results I wanted without them. Attached is a picture of some of the area.
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rancar
Veteran Member
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Thanks Jack and Bill.
OK, I think you convinced me that the wheels could add beneficial results with the finishing work one tries to do. But, I guess another related question I have and it pertains to Jack's comment on using the wheels and rake on uneven terrain conditions. Do you think a tractor's top and tilt would be able to compensate somewhat for the lack of wheels? I ordered my tractor with the top and tilt kit as this would help me in the use of other implements. With the landscape rake, I thought about the situation of using the rake on uneven terrain, and I have plenty of this, and for the need to adjust the links to avoid digging too deeply and maybe doing damage to the rake's tines. My thinking though was I could avoid these potential difficulties by using the tractor's top and tilt functions and manually raise or lower the 3ph when needed to compensate for degree changes in terrain. Of course, this would require a bit more time in any job I do as I would have to pay much closer attention to changes in terrain conditions than if I had the wheels but I thought I could do this, save the $250 I would have to spend for wheels, and use it on something else instead. While I ordered the rake without wheels, I'm trying to get info from the dealer on whether I could purchase the wheels at a later date if I think I really need them.
Thanks for your insight.
Bob
OK, I think you convinced me that the wheels could add beneficial results with the finishing work one tries to do. But, I guess another related question I have and it pertains to Jack's comment on using the wheels and rake on uneven terrain conditions. Do you think a tractor's top and tilt would be able to compensate somewhat for the lack of wheels? I ordered my tractor with the top and tilt kit as this would help me in the use of other implements. With the landscape rake, I thought about the situation of using the rake on uneven terrain, and I have plenty of this, and for the need to adjust the links to avoid digging too deeply and maybe doing damage to the rake's tines. My thinking though was I could avoid these potential difficulties by using the tractor's top and tilt functions and manually raise or lower the 3ph when needed to compensate for degree changes in terrain. Of course, this would require a bit more time in any job I do as I would have to pay much closer attention to changes in terrain conditions than if I had the wheels but I thought I could do this, save the $250 I would have to spend for wheels, and use it on something else instead. While I ordered the rake without wheels, I'm trying to get info from the dealer on whether I could purchase the wheels at a later date if I think I really need them.
Thanks for your insight.
Bob
Von
Veteran Member, Advertiser
Top-n-tilt is useful for many things, but I don't think it would be very practical for controlling the rake to achieve levelness. You could tilt it to one side to clean out a ditch just as you would with a rear blade or box scraper. Most of my experiences with a rake have been in final stages of soil finishing in preparation for seeding or sodding. You make several passes in different directions to comb out small stones and sticks and produce a level surface just as you would with a hand rake in preparing a garden seedbed. During the first pass or two, the ground the tractor drives over is not level. Gauge wheels on the rake are close to the tines and help keep the rake as level as possible independent of what the tractor is doing. Note that these wheels run over a surface that has already been smoothed by the rake tines so they don't encounter as many bumps. I'm sure the wheels can be ordered any time as an accessory. My bet is that you will ultimately decide they are worth the cost.