DIY garden rake. A small refinement of the fan rake. Video "How to make fan yourself"

Foreword

There are a huge number of different rakes, from tiny ones for picking berries to huge tractor ones, and it is very important to be able to understand them in order to use them with maximum efficiency.

The design of the first rakes was extremely simple. For surface loosening of the soil, either a snag with several curved root processes, or a branch with a stump of the trunk, on which there were several short knots, was used. It is logical that then there was no need to rake the leaves, due to the lack of even the slightest idea about landscape design. Of course, there are no photos of such primitive tools; museums have rough sketches.

In the future, a tool for raking the soil was made of wood by turning wooden teeth and driving them into holes made in a transverse bar - the “ridge”. These products are still in use today. In accordance with the name of the inventory in question, the so-called specialties of workers sounded: rower or rower, from the word rake, row. There was also such a thing as cluttering the grass after mowing it, hence the names of those doing this work came from: a hulk or a hulk.

In rural areas, these words are still in use, but are used less and less, as more and more varieties of large agricultural tractor rakes are used today. Of the manual inventory, the popularity is given to the metal tine rakes, which are produced by stamping in large quantities. Wooden ones are more difficult to manufacture (you need to grind the teeth separately and then insert them into the "ridge"), but they are cheaper, since the cost of wood is lower.

Various models of fan rakes are made from elastic rods, which are very convenient for cleaning lawn and house lawn leaves, as well as cleaning the site as a whole. Landowners also use numerous options for small plastic rakes for loosening the earth in a greenhouse, in flower pots, and in flower beds. You can choose them from the photo in the catalogs.

As a rule, any garden equipment for working with the earth is equipped with a long handle, this also applies to a rake, with the exception of small plastic models. For the most part, you have to work with this tool in the garden, among bushes and other plantings, and therefore a fairly long handle is needed. The movement of the rake is always performed on yourself. First, the tool is thrown forward, after capturing grass, leaves or clods of earth, it is pulled up.

When leveling loose soil, alternation of movements directed towards and away from oneself is allowed. Often large clods of earth are broken with a rake; after digging up the garden with a shovel, flat turned teeth are convenient for this purpose. Leaves and grass cuttings are best raked and turned with a tool with wide flat teeth, the gaps between which are narrower.

It is convenient to perform such work with the help of milling double-sided rakes, an awl-shaped frequent comb of teeth in one row will allow you to clean lawns from leaves and pebbles, and rarer flat knives will help in removing moss and grass. Such rakes are sometimes equipped with wheels at the ends of the transverse "ridge" to reduce the effort invested in the movement, which looks very unusual in the photo. For everyday care of the garden, flower beds, house lawn, it is more efficient to use one of two types of fan rakes. Distinguish between plate and wire.

The former are made of narrow elastic strips of metal, they are slightly springy during operation, which allows cleaning in areas with a large number of irregularities. Wire models are given greater rigidity, which allows you to work on flat areas with high useful plantings without damaging their stems and leaves. Movements with any type of fan rake can be performed both longitudinal, forward and towards you, and transverse - from side to side, holding them vertically.

In a small area, it is possible to level the loosened earth, break up clods, and collect grass after weeding in stacks with a hand garden tool. But if it comes to several tens of acres, you will need at least light equipment and appropriate adaptations for it. It is in such cases that agricultural rakes are used, large ones for tractors, and small ones like. The only thing they have in common with manual equipment is that they have teeth, the number of which, however, has been increased upwards.

The width of the beam with mounted teeth reached from 2.17 to 2.74 meters compared to manual ones, the working area of ​​​​which is from 10 to 73 centimeters. Once upon a time, when processing large areas (chopping clods after plowing before sowing, harvesting hay and ears in stacks), they could not do without horse rakes. An attachment with long curved teeth was installed on the frame, which was brought into working or idle position using a special lifting projectile.

The frame was mounted on wheels, and the whole structure was attached to the horse harness by means of a drawbar, or was supplied with shafts, in front there was a seat for a worker driving a horse. The most popular were various models of English horse-drawn rakes. All this equipment can be seen in museums in the photo. Today, completely different devices are hung on heavy equipment.

For example, it is difficult to overestimate the efficiency and productivity of side rotary rakes, which consist of several short combs with long teeth, the beams of which diverge from the rotor installed in the center. Such equipment is installed in at least one pair, with counter-rotation towards the center, but there can be 5-6 such paired devices on two rods placed at a slight angle to the sides. With such a rake, you can stir and swath hay, wrap ready-made windrows, double them into one, and, if necessary, scatter them.

The productivity of another type of side rake is also high - wheel-finger, the efficiency of which is ensured not only by its own rotation, but also by the speed of the tractor. The design of these devices is more complex: spring pins are installed on the base of the wheel on the outer side of the rim. They are tilted against rotation, so that grass or hay is easily thrown away.

Such wheels are installed in sections of 5–6 pieces on rods located in a wedge, depending on the direction of which, the raked stalks or ears are collected in rolls or, conversely, scattered. But the simplest and most convenient is the transverse rake model, which is based on a wheeled frame that attaches to a tractor or walk-behind tractor, depending on the size of the device.

The transverse ridge can rotate around its longitudinal axis by raising and lowering long curved teeth. To clean the latter, rods rigidly fixed in the middle horizontal position are provided, one per section of a dozen teeth. When raked hay accumulates under the tine arcs, the lifting unit hydraulics actuate and the bar turns, the rake rises and releases the swath. On a walk-behind tractor, you have to manually turn the “ridge” with a special lever.

At the side rakes, the windrows are laid, stretching in the direction of travel, and at the transverse rakes, they are raked perpendicular to the tractor.

Garden tools can take on a rather original form, but are rarely surprising. Another thing is the non-standard use of devices with familiar names. For example, there is a practice of expanding the functionality of a conventional hand scythe with a rake that is attached to the handle above the blade. With this addition, it is much easier to stack ears of cut rye or wheat in even sheaves.

This device is called a hornbeam and is equipped with especially long teeth, which is why it remotely resembles. True, today farmers know about such equipment only from the photo. Even in ancient times, the forest supplied the villagers not only with mushrooms, but also with berries. And it would be a mistake to think that women, going for blueberries or lingonberries, picked the berries one by one, so they would lose too much time and not have time to manage the household.

To harvest the "harvest" in the forest clearings, special devices were used - rakes. They are most similar to a scoop with a comb located along the edge, however, this is one of the varieties of hand rakes. In the past, this inventory was made of wood, such specimens are preserved for the most part in the photo, today there are handicraft models made of metal. The disadvantage of the rake is that, along with the ripe berries, unripe ones are also picked from the bushes.

Another interesting rake option has nothing to do with agriculture. They do not have the usual bar, the teeth are located around the rotating cylinder in several rows, powerful magnets are located inside. In addition to the cylindrical one, there is also a flat version, with wheels at the ends of the crossbar with teeth. These rakes are used by criminal investigators to search for metal objects at the crime scene in difficult conditions, in puddles and mud. That is, this adaptation to the countryside is indirectly related, since most often such a rake is needed outside the city.

When preparing the soil for planting, various garden tools are used, however, in the subsequent care of seedlings and young plants, it is necessary to use only a fan rake, which is ideal for these activities.

Fan rakes are widely used when a small gentle load on the soil surface is required due to their lightness, elasticity and relative softness. They are great for:

– cleaning of small litter;

- cleaning old fallen leaves;

– gentle cleaning of the garden area for young plants and grass;

- “combing” and thinning the lawn;

- loosening the soil to saturate it with oxygen.

Design Description

The device of this garden tool is quite simple and consists of two main parts: a handle and a transverse nozzle with thin teeth connected to each other in the form of a fan about half a meter wide. The teeth are usually made of wire and are slightly bent at the ends at an angle of 90 degrees. The weight of the whole structure is much less than the mass of ordinary traditional metal rakes. It is quite possible to make such a simple hand tool with your own hands.

Manufacturing of the working part

To make a base in the form of a fan with your own hands, you will need about 15 meters of stainless steel wire with a diameter of 4 mm. It is stainless steel that has the ability to absorb in contact with the surface, has sufficient strength and durability.

1. The wire must be cut into identical pieces 0.5 meters long each. Then, using a vise, bend the ends of each piece of wire on one side by about 5 cm. The bend angle should be 90 degrees.
2. To make the tool look aesthetically pleasing, you need to evenly distribute the teeth - so that there is the same distance between them. To do this, you need to take two metal strips with dimensions of 500x20x1.5 mm and connect them with two bolts and two nuts (before that, drill holes in the strips). Place the metal rods between the planks and fix them - put a sample between each two adjacent rods and hit it with a heavy hammer with a sharp movement (there should be a deflection that limits the movement of the rod to the sides).
3. Next, you need to make a fan holder that connects to the handle. To do this, you need to take a piece of a metal pipe with a diameter of 3 cm and place the uncurved ends of the wire into it, pushing them inward by about 5-8 cm. Then carefully hammer this end of the pipe with rods. The other end will remain for the cutting.

Making a cutting

As a handle, you can use old holders from any garden tool or a plastic thick-walled pipe from a heating system of a convenient length. But you can make a stalk of wood with your own hands. The best option would be pine wood or other deciduous trees. It is desirable that the fan rake results in light and comfortable work.

When preparing the cutting, it is important to remember that its diameter should be a couple of millimeters larger than the diameter of the pipe - so that it sits more tightly.

To protect against exposure to moisture and insect pests, it is desirable to treat the stalk with stain or impregnation and varnish.

Epoxy resin can be used to connect the handle and the work surface (fan of rods). You need to warm it up, dip one end of the handle into it and insert it into the hole of a piece of pipe with a fan. For additional strength of the connection, you can make a hole in the pipe and hammer a carnation into it.

Do-it-yourself fan rakes from improvised materials will cost the gardener much less than those bought at a hardware store and, perhaps, will become much stronger and more reliable than store-bought ones.

Very - this is a wonderful time of the year, when nature is transformed and begins to prepare for the upcoming winter. The trees begin to change the color of the foliage, creating bizarre and amazing landscapes, and the grass turns yellow and becomes dry.

When autumn comes, it is very difficult to avoid fallen leaves. It will not be only if there are no trees nearby. But this is unrealistic when it comes to a summer cottage. After all, it is not surprising, usually there are a large number of fruit-bearing trees.

Fan rakes will come to the rescue, which will easily collect all the fallen leaves and rake dry grass. They will become a true friend and the most important tool in the country in the autumn. You can buy them at any store that sells garden supplies. If you do not want to overpay, then you can try to make a rake yourself.

Benefits of a fan rake

The fan type rake looks like a broom. This type allows you to cope with the task with ease, as thin cloves instantly rake up fallen leaves and dry grass. The working area is metal teeth, rather thin and slightly curved at the end. Such a rake is not suitable for preparing mail for planting cultivated plants. But in other cases, they have the following distinct advantages:

• to remove small and small debris, you can choose the option of plastic. This is due to the fact that its teeth are more elastic and allow you to easily rake debris from uneven surfaces;
• allow you to remove leaves from hard-to-reach places, for example, from under bushes;
• can be used to "comb" the lawn before cutting it a little;
• with their help, it is possible to carry out surface aeration of the soil;
• good if you need to facilitate the germination of the lawn or thin it out.

If you need to clean the garden area or summer cottage, then you need to use a nozzle with straight teeth. This will prevent damage to the seeded lawn or young shoots. The nozzle is best suited from plastic. A rake with a triangular fan can easily cope not only with flat areas, but also with corners and hard-to-reach ones.

Important! A special lock located on the tool allows you to independently adjust the width of the grip itself, the pressing force, and the area for processing.

How to make a fan rake yourself?

To make a rake for cleaning dry grass and fallen leaves, you can use the simple recommendations of experienced gardeners. It is quite feasible to make a tool from improvised means and materials. The only thing is that it is necessary to observe several conditions for a high-quality result:

• the material should resemble the factory;
• correctly fix all parts so that the load is distributed evenly;
• aesthetic side.

As teeth for future rakes, you can take stainless steel wires. It will take about 15 meters of material. After acquisition, it is cut into even pieces, about 50 centimeters long. With the help of a vice, the ends are clamped exactly 5 centimeters, it is necessary to make a right angle.

Then you need to set the pitch of the teeth. The distance between them should be the same. Metal strips are taken, holes are made in them and a bolt is inserted. The teeth are fixed to these bars. The fan is placed on the anvil and clamped between two plates.

The last step is to connect the fan into a ring. To assemble all the parts, you need to take a pipe with a diameter of 30 millimeters. All ends of the wire are thrust into it by 5-8 centimeters. After which the edge is clogged. A wooden handle is inserted into the resulting hole on the other side of the fan.

Hello to all DIYers, as well as summer residents!

Recently, when harvesting fallen leaves, my almost new fan rake suddenly fell apart. And this is not my first problem with such a rake. So last fall, my fan rakes already broke (see my article ""), which was caused by a very flimsy and poorly made design.

This time, however, the rake did not break, but simply loosened up, fell apart into separate parts. However, this was again caused by a very flimsy design and poor quality of individual elements, which is the fault of a negligent manufacturer.

After I managed to find all the details and assemble the rake, I decided to make a small but very important revision of their design, which would eliminate such an emergency in the future.

And here, by the way, I can advise all users who happened to purchase a rake of a similar design, be sure to make the same revision. Especially if you purchased this rake at a low price and from a not very reliable manufacturer. Believe my experience - it’s better to spend a little time in a timely manner and make a little refinement than to literally crawl on all fours on the ground with a lantern and look for details (especially a small trapezoidal detail), as I had to do.

In order to make the essence of this refinement clear, let us briefly consider the device of such a fan rake.

So, a rake of this type, as a rule, consists of three metal parts (not counting the wooden handle).
The first and main part is the body of the rake itself, on the one hand it has a sleeve into which the wooden handle is inserted, and on the other hand, a trapezoidal bell, into which the fan part assembled into a bundle is inserted, which serves as teeth (this is the second part).

The lower part of each strip, which are collected in a fan, has a recess, with which all strips are put on a groove made in the body (the tip of the pencil in the photo above just shows this groove).
However, in order for the bundle of strips to be tightly pressed against the groove by the recesses and thus firmly held in the body, on the other side of the body it is pressed by a third part, made in the form of a small steel plate of a trapezoid shape.

In turn, in order for this part to hold firmly and not fall out, it is pressed by four bent teeth or brackets made integral with the body.

So, the whole problem is just that these four brackets are made of very thin and flimsy steel. As a result, in the process of working with a rake, these brackets are gradually squeezed out and thus, the whole structure becomes loose, and then at one fine moment, the trapezoidal plate slips out and the entire fan part of the rake immediately falls out.

Therefore, our refinement will consist in the fact that we will drill two through holes in the specified plate and in the body and connect them with a much more reliable bolted connection, using two small M4 bolts.

To do this, we need the following tools: an electric drill, two metal drills with diameters of 2.5 and 4 mm, a screwdriver and a 7 mm open-end wrench.

As fasteners, we use two M4 bolts 15-20 mm long, four wide washers, two lock washers and two M4 nuts.

Refinement process

First, we drill two holes at the top and bottom of the trapezoid plate and the body with a thin 2.5 mm drill. So the holes will be easier to drill, and they will turn out more accurately.

So that the lower ends of the tooth strips assembled in a fan do not interfere with us when drilling the upper hole, we separate them by inserting some kind of wedge. I used a long double ended screwdriver bit for this purpose.

Then we expand the holes with a drill with a diameter of 4 mm.

And now it remains to insert M4 bolts into the holes, having previously placed washers under their heads.

On the other hand, we first put ordinary washers on the bolts, then grub washers (to lock our threaded connections), and then we wind the M4 nuts.

If lock washers for M4 bolts are not available, then locknuts can be used to prevent loosening.
Well, now it remains only to tighten the nuts with a wrench and a screwdriver.

And now our rake is ready to go.

This revision took me no more than 10 minutes. But now you can safely work with such a fan rake without fear that they will fall apart at the most inopportune moment.

And indeed, until the time of writing this article, I had already managed to work with this rake for several days and, as a result, revealed absolutely no problems. All parts of the rake are held firmly and do not loosen during operation.

In the event that we need to disassemble the rake, for example, for repairs, then this can always be done very quickly by simply unscrewing the nuts and pulling out the bolts.

Well, that's about all! All for now and a reliable tool in operation!