Rake Ratchet Rake?

[Ken45101]

Box blade does not touch it unless I use the scarifer teeth and they are 12 inches apart so it takes forever to looses up the gravel the full width of the road. I am thinking all those teeth on the Ratchet Rake shoud be quicker, especially on the Front end loader where I can put some down pressure. Time will tell if I am right.

PART of the theory of a box blade is that the teeth hold the blade down so that the scraper digs in too. With properly adjusted tooth depth and blade angle, the bb is more effective than when improperly adjusted. How well that works will depend on the rock size and how hard it is compacted.

I doubt that the RR will be effective on a really hard packed gravel drive with big sized rock. OTOH, if you have that situation, it might be a lot better to keep the current surface undisturbed and solid and just put a top dressing of finer stone on the top.

Ken

 

[wploetz]

Thanks, we are trying to rework what we have, packed bank run gravel. At 3/4 of a mile, 16' wide, even 1" top dressing is 260 yards of material or many thousands of dollars. I have an adjustable hydrallic top link and I have played with teh tooth angle but can not get them to do more than gouge five ruts and the blade will not follow at that depth so that has not worked out too well. Maybe I need to pile weights onto the box blade? Anybody ever tried that?

 

[wploetz]

OK, got my 72" HD Ratchet Rake from Tractor Supply. Let's get the bad stuff out of the way. Ordered it on a tuesday, did not come in until following tuesday. Should have been a one day transaction, 2 at most but someone went on vacation and did not take care of my order. TSC said they did not get the parts box but after a couple hours, they found it.

Now for the low-down.

Instructions - simple, straight forward and accurate. I actually slipped it onto bucket rather than driving into it. Fastened cables and straps easily and ready to rumble.

Function - for all you nay-sayers - this thing WORKS! Super hard packed bank run gravel full of pot holes. I dug back and forth about 3 times each direction over the potholes, a couple more times for the deeper ones, then used the box blade to spread everything out neatly. Quick and effective. I did the whole 3/4 mile in 2 hours and it turned out beautifully. Now it will be interesting to see how quickly the potholes come back!

Highly recommended. The Ratchet Rake rocks!

 

[Ken45101]

FWIW, the local TSC store only gets one supply truck per week, on Tuesdays.

Ken

 

[wploetz]

In Dunkirk NY, they do not get a weekly transfer truck, they shipped this UPS so that excuse won't give them a break.

 

[magicheater]

So how is this different enough from a "ratchet rake" to warrant a patent? Only difference I see is fine and course teeth arrangements.

 

[wjb-49]

The Ratchet Rake was a hot topic on TBN for quite a while; I even read all of the thread with 223 posts and became interested in this device. However, I have not seen much discussion in several weeks. Is everyone who bought one still happy with their purchase? I am very close to buying one (72" model) for my Ford 340B with a 67" bucket? Any opinions on the effectiveness of the 72" model on my tractor?


Thanks in advance for any opinions!