Just starting a little project to fit a root rake to the blade of my trusty Fiat 70CI. Thought it'd be fun to share this. Basic situation is a 70 hp dozer. About 8 acres of ground to clear. Many clumps of sag which is a type of clumpy blade grass found in Tasmania. A good size plant can stop the dozer in it's tracks if not approached correctly (corner of blade down and hook it out of the ground). Pushing these up to burn also pushes up much soil, so I'm looking to build an attachment to help. Also have Silver Wattle which is a fast growing, short lived tree, with lots of spiky branches. Basic plan is a 125 x 75 x 6mm frame on the front of the blade with brackets to receive 18 Futura FC10SS scarifier shanks. This will put the shanks a bit over 6" apart. The shanks are removable and adjustable in height, so every second can either be removed or lifted to reduce load on initial pass over new ground. Also considering some wings above and beside the blade, covered in woven mesh to prevent branches from joining me in the cab. Wattles seem to love climbing in and helping drive! Interested in advice and comments.
Certainly an original idea nutwood, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rake with removable tines. I would be concerned about controlling those sharp tines and preventing them from diving into the ground. You may want to consider making the main beam a little heavier, 6mm wall might not cut the mustard if you hit a stump or rock. We had a conversation on the subject when Metalman was building his. HeavyEquipmentForums
I'd agree about the 6mm, that's about a heavy quarter inch right? I think I'd want the main beam to be around 13mm (which I believe is a heavy half inch). If you do indeed catch one shank on something and you have 70hp pushing, I don't think it would end well.
Thanks for the replies. The 6mm is due to that being the heaviest section 125 x 75 is readily available in. My concern is exactly as redneckracin puts it, one tine hooking. My concern is not so much that the RHS won't take it, but that the attachment for the tine will tear off. I'm giving much thought to how the tine attachments are gusseted. This rake isn't designed for heavy duty use. I considered going down the path discussed in Metalman's thread, however our rocks and stumps are well bedded in. Basically my machine hasn't the power to push a heavy duty rake for clearing ground and it's also something I don't do that much of. The idea is to rough clear the ground with the blade and ripper, then use the rake to clear up the mess created. Moving into the future, I'll use it for tidying up fire breaks and other situations where previously cleared ground is suffering from re-growth. The removable tines seem a cheap and easy way to get a tine with a replaceable tip and also give me the ability to reduce the number, depending on the application. I suspect the dozer will struggle to push eighteen tines if they are any depth into the ground.
Here is a bit of information a root rake that we built for our D6C dozer about 3 years ago. The main arms are 50mm solid plate & so are the tynes. A tad heavy, but I didnt know for sure how heavy to go & didnt want things bending when coming up against a stump or a hardhead just under the surface. If I was doing it over again I would go with one more tyne & (spaced equally) & use 38mm plate instead of 50mm for a machine of that size.
Thanks for that Metalman. It's a nice neat job. I'm looking at longer tynes and tighter spacing. Reason being that the main use will be pushing up sticks and rubbish, hopefully without dirt, and ripping out clumps of blade grass and bracken. Interested to know your thoughts on this plan.
I think longer tynes at a tighter spacing would be a good idea. As long as it's dry, it seems to work better at leaving the dirt behind............