Cheap And Dirty Lawn Rake
Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 5:03 pm
Once again, laziness seems to be the motivating force propelling me to fabricate something to make my life easier. This time it’s the daunting chore of raking leaves. The older I get, the more mechanized I try to become to alleviate physical work that seems to because harder and harder. I've avoid raking with a passion and normally use a leaf blower but that takes up quite a bit of time especially when I am trying to move a large pile. I typically blow the leaves into the field once the corn or beans have been picked.
Today I gave my Cheap And Dirty Lawn Rake a try. I am pleased with the results. Now I have another reason to operate my Cub. It isn’t prefect but it does work really well. Sure beats pulling on a rake handle or hoisting the leaf blower. It’s much quicker too.
I fabricated it using 2”x 2” x 10 ga. box tubing (4‘6“ long) , 3”x4”x .25” angle iron 62” long and some .25” x 6” x18” plate steel for the pivot brackets. I again used the same anchor, which attaches into the 2” receiver, that I use with all my Cheap And Dirty implements.
The 6” wide pivot plates straddle the anchor to stabilize the rake and absorb tensional load similar to the other implements. However, the plates on the rake are slightly larger due to the additional torsion and side loading caused by the wide rake.
The beam has an offset in it to allow clearance for the draw bar and the angle iron is attached perpendicular to the ground. Mounted on the angle iron are 22 rake teeth that I purchased at a tractor swap meet. I got a box of 36 of them or $20!
When I mounted the teeth, the angle was wrong for the application I wanted.
A quick bend with a ¼” tubing bender setting them more perpendicular to the ground allowed them to work as I intended.
The rake is not completely painted in the photos because I intend to add a gusset between the angle iron and the beam for additional strength. I may also add an extension to the angle iron to keep leaves from going over the top of the rake as they pile up in front of the rake.
It only took a few minutes to clean this portion of the back yard. Again, not perfect but by tomorrow, the way the leaves are starting to fall, you'll never know it was ever raked.
Today I gave my Cheap And Dirty Lawn Rake a try. I am pleased with the results. Now I have another reason to operate my Cub. It isn’t prefect but it does work really well. Sure beats pulling on a rake handle or hoisting the leaf blower. It’s much quicker too.
I fabricated it using 2”x 2” x 10 ga. box tubing (4‘6“ long) , 3”x4”x .25” angle iron 62” long and some .25” x 6” x18” plate steel for the pivot brackets. I again used the same anchor, which attaches into the 2” receiver, that I use with all my Cheap And Dirty implements.
The 6” wide pivot plates straddle the anchor to stabilize the rake and absorb tensional load similar to the other implements. However, the plates on the rake are slightly larger due to the additional torsion and side loading caused by the wide rake.
The beam has an offset in it to allow clearance for the draw bar and the angle iron is attached perpendicular to the ground. Mounted on the angle iron are 22 rake teeth that I purchased at a tractor swap meet. I got a box of 36 of them or $20!
When I mounted the teeth, the angle was wrong for the application I wanted.
A quick bend with a ¼” tubing bender setting them more perpendicular to the ground allowed them to work as I intended.
The rake is not completely painted in the photos because I intend to add a gusset between the angle iron and the beam for additional strength. I may also add an extension to the angle iron to keep leaves from going over the top of the rake as they pile up in front of the rake.
It only took a few minutes to clean this portion of the back yard. Again, not perfect but by tomorrow, the way the leaves are starting to fall, you'll never know it was ever raked.