I'm looking into producing stick rakes for small-medium dozers (10 to 14 feet wide.) Wondering what are some of the features that set the good ones (and the bad ones) apart from the rest.
I like a rake that that tends to float on the surface a bit, so probably a 50mm tine. Narrower tines are lighter, cheaper etc. but you always seem to be struggling to keep them from digging in and collecting dirt.
There are one's here for sale that have cost over 80 thousand to build , purpose built for Hightrack D8's , strong and used for clearing post harvest pine stumps . I followed the progress of another being fitted to the blade of a D65 Komatsu locally ,that to would have cost many thousands to build new and strong as well . The one on the 65 would have added weight out front making for a problem reversing back up a slope . But easy to change back to blade . [/IMG]
pic might come up this time
This one would be a good ballance between both sorts , seller does not say how many bolts holding it on but guess it would not be many . No further pics of the rear of the blade either
Thanks for that. What sort of spacing do you reckon? I was thinking of duplicating something like this, but with some modifications.
I don't know anything about the brush in Oz... however when I was working with my father in the PNW he considered a dirt free brush pile a work of art on the order of the Taj Mahal. His words to me when we used to be able to burn brush, were "you can't burn dirt." Same thing with trucking it, keep it clean. If I was spending my money on any of the above pictured rakes, it would be similar to the one one the D8 in the first image.
I couldn’t agree more with this quote Mother Deuce, it is also an acquired skill to be able to burn a pile of timber without leaving a pile of dirt, unburned sticks, root butts etc. The spacing on that rake looks OK Arc Flash, maybe 6 to 8 inches? I’ve priced the folding rakes recently, and while they are a good idea, I couldn’t justify nearly 30% extra on the purchase price. A rake on a D6 can be left on the tractor, folded, and floated without being wide enough to require an escort. A 20 ft. solid rake would usually need an additional truck just to carry it. I don’t like way that the spear attaches to the rake, it is easy enough to design things so that it attaches to the blade. It also looks a bit too large and cumbersome for that size tractor, would be a pita raking with that attached in most applications.
Yep. I would LOVE to build one like that, but for eighty grand ... I had better warm up on something simpler.
I was wondering about the folding arrangement. It looks like extra expense to build, but not requiring an escort is a plus. I hadn't thought of that.
I have seen some of the land thats been reclaimed from pine forest , worth my right arm . Best that can be done is cheap and strong . I've been doing this sort of job a few hours now and again over the last few weeks with a blade . Trees up to 18 inches , mostly 8-10 . There is no way I would want a wider rake than the blade than my 155 has on it ,it gathers enough as it is . A rake would be nice for hooking the smaller material . Its all a matter of what your/their target material is and what your clients want . Sooner or later what ever you build is going to be used for some heavy work , best be able to cope with it . The clip on rake has 100 ton digger tips on it . Bouncing back between blade and rake as its needed must be a plus so a hook-on has to be good for that .
It is pretty rare that we rake heavy maiden timber that is green. Most of ours has been pulled over and had a grass fire or two through it over a few years before we rake it.... so lighter loads but big areas, hence the wide rakes. This is our Fiat Allis 14C with 16ft Homan rake on burning duties. These fires are about 12 hours old and the idea is to bust them out to allow air into the unburnt timber.
There was a bloke on the Sunshine Coast who made his own rake. Laying down the end fitted neatly between the tracks of his 7H. then he'd lower the ripper, chian it all together, lift it all up and climb onto the trailer.The rake didn't look as nice as most you see but worked just as good. Eric ?????????????? is his name from Pomona