Pine Straw Rake for dethatching (review)

[legbuh]

Well, I decided to go ahead and make the purchase of a pine straw rake for dethatching. I do also have many pines on my property that I could rake, but that wasn't the intended purpose. It was mainly for raking up twigs and dethatching.

I tried it today and it seemed to do a really good job. IT's about 50lbs. I found that to get the best penetration I lengthened the top arm a couple inches and also would park on a hill so the rake was hanging above ground, then lower the 3ph until it hit. That way going over hills it wouldn't get up above ground.

I found that the 3ph on my bx1860 once this thing was on the ground it wouldn't go down any more (no down force of course).

I think if I were to add a cinder block or 2 to it somehow it may work even better. Here's a pic of what I got:

Any ideas on how to easily add weight to something like this? I don't want the weight on the tines as they would most likely bend. What about putting weight on the 3ph arms themselves?

 

[leonz]

I would be more worried about the spring coils being sprung in any case and their losing tension.


One option would be to purchase a piece of 6 inch channel iron and load it with half blocks vertically.

if you measure the distance between the arms and weld a pair of stops on the botttom of the channel iron- a pair of tabs welded to the iron to secure it to both lower arms with a hole drilled in each tab to accept a pin to secure the channel iron to the lower linkages.


leon:thumbsup:

 

[radioman]

you could take a old bed frame and make a carryall built on your tine rake the same size as cinder blocks. This way you can adjust the number of blocks or shift weight as needed. When the tine rake is not needed anymore, it can double as a carryall.

 

[mcnitt]

Legbuh, About how far apart are the tines?

 

[legbuh]

I'd say they're about 1-1/2 - 2" apart.