Garden tools for loosening the soil: photos, reviews. Equipment for loosening the soil with your own hands
Any work in the country cannot be done without inventory. It is chosen depending on the destination. What happens for loosening the soil and how to do it yourself, read the article.
Rake
It is very important to loosen and level the surface layers of the soil before planting. This can be done with a simple tool - a rake, which is made from different material. It is not recommended to process heavy soil with a wooden rake. They are very light, so you will have to make some physical effort while working with them. It is better to loosen such soil with an iron rake.
When choosing garden tools for loosening the soil, you need to carefully examine it, especially the reverse side. It is important to know that a solid metal bar is stronger than a composite one. A wide one is better than a narrow one. Typically, a rake has twelve teeth, but for loosening large areas, sixteen or more are needed.
Manual Soil Ripper
For those who prefer to work without the use of machinery, there is a manual cultivator. It is used when it becomes necessary to loosen the surface layer of compacted soil or plow up weeds. This inventory is a metal plate with three or five teeth, to which a long handle is attached. A person loosens the soil with such a cultivator, standing upright.
Soil cultivator made from a saw
In the household of any gardener or gardener there is a broken saw. A triangular blade is easily and quickly cut out of it, to which a metal pipe, fifteen centimeters long, bent at a small angle, is riveted. A round wooden stick is inserted into it. Its length varies from one to one and a half meters, depending on the height of the person who will work with this inventory. The blade is an isosceles triangle. It can be made different shapes. The size of the blade depends on where you need to loosen the soil. If these are narrow row spacings, it is better to use garden tools for loosening the soil with a small blade.
It is also used for loosening the earth and weeding weeds in greenhouses, between raspberry and strawberry bushes. The small plate has a width of seven to eight centimeters and a length of six and a half. For loosening the soil under the bushes of currants, gooseberries, grapes, equipment with an average blade size is used, the width of which is fifteen centimeters and the length is ten. They can loosen beds with melons, cucumbers and tomatoes.
For under fruit trees, it is more convenient to use a large blade, which is equipped with garden tools for loosening the soil. A do-it-yourself ripper can easily cope with labor-intensive work. Blade width - twenty-five centimeters, length - fourteen. You can take any other sizes.
Chopper soil cultivator
It is very easy to make such an inventory. You need to take an ordinary chopper and weld a curved steel plate to the central part of the blade. Drill two holes on its free end. Then a piece of pipe with a diameter of two and a half centimeters is selected. On one side, two square-shaped cheeks are welded to it, on each of which five coaxial holes are drilled. The cheeks are arranged symmetrically with respect to each other.
The distance between them should correspond to the thickness of the curved plate, which is inserted between the cheeks and fixed. A wooden handle is inserted into the pipe segment from the opposite side. This is how you can make garden tools for loosening the soil with your own hands. The photo clearly demonstrates how you can change the angle of inclination in relation to the ground.
Homemade iron ripper
To cultivate the soil under a shrub, garden tools are required. A do-it-yourself ripper will facilitate work and increase productivity. To make a tool, you will need soft iron, from which hoops are made. This will be the starting material.
A small strip is cut with a chisel, the width of which is three and a half centimeters, and the length is twenty. At one end, teeth are machined four centimeters long. Usually no more than three pieces are obtained. A couple of holes are drilled at the other end. With the help of nails, a wooden handle is fixed. Garden equipment for loosening the soil is ready.
Ripper "Mole"
This garden tool loosens the soil to a depth of twenty-five centimeters. The width of the strip dug up by him can be forty-two, forty-eight or fifty-five centimeters, it depends on the inventory model. The soil cultivator "Mole" is characterized by simplicity and reliability. The design is a frame with teeth and a pair of opposite, articulated forks.
To work with the tool, you do not need to have any special skills. It is enough to press the pitchfork with your foot, and they will enter the ground, and when lowering the handle, they will rise up with your hand. Lumps of soil will push through the teeth and fall to the place from which they were raised, already loosened. The layer of earth does not turn over during such processing. Weeds will be released from the ground, but not cut. They, along with the roots, will be on the surface of the beds. They can be collected in a bucket and taken out of the garden, or you can leave them. They will still dry out and die.
Garden tools for loosening the soil "Mole" is a universal tool. It can be used by people with different sides of support on the leg: right or left. But this tool does not process dense virgin soil. It needs to be opened first.
Ripper Fokina
This garden tool is called Fokin's flat cutter, after the name of its inventor. It is designed for loosening the soil and its weeding. With the help of inventory, you can make twenty types various works in the garden and orchard. The main function of the flat cutter is to pull out or cut weeds at a depth of two to five centimeters. This method of tillage is gentle, because the structure of the soil does not change, animals and insects are not harmed, and a lot of physical effort and time are not spent.
Loosening is carried out without wrapping the earth layer, so there is no need to change the surface layer. Of course, it is impossible to plow the soil to a great depth with a flat cutter. In traditional agriculture, he rather plays the role of a chopper. But, if the soil is porous and with a mulch layer, Fokine's garden tools for loosening the soil can work wonders. Its design is very simple. Two plates, bent at a certain angle, resemble staples. The surfaces with which weeds are cut are sharpened sharply.
Fokin flat cutters have six varieties, each of which is designed for a specific job on the land. So, for example, beds are weeded with a small tool and dense seedlings are thinned out. With the help of a large inventory, the preparation, formation and hilling of beds is carried out. They also mow the grass. Heavy clay soils are best loosened with a flat cutter "Krepysh", with a shortened blade. For hilling tall plants the “Powerful” is suitable - it has a wide blade.
How to work with a flat cutter?
It is better to loosen the soil with a large tool. First you need to mow the weeds with tall stems. If the soil surface is heavily overgrown with grass, you need to cover it with black polyethylene. So the weeds will not have the strength to grow. This work should be done half a month before the start of loosening the soil.
So, the tip of the inventory is stuck into the ground and deepened by three centimeters. The blade should be set parallel to the ground or at a slight angle. It is strictly forbidden to put it perpendicular to the surface. Then, with a smooth movement, the tool is dragged towards itself. The blade will move and cut grass roots. When working with a flat cutter, you need to carefully monitor that the soil does not move, but remains in the same place. If soil remains at the feet, something is done wrong in working with the tool. Perhaps the movements were too fast. With a well-sharpened tool, work progresses quickly and does not require much effort.
"Tornado" - manual cultivator
Tilling the soil is not easy. To get a rich harvest of planted crops, you need to dig and loosen the soil, get rid of weeds and weed the plants. These jobs take a lot of time and physical effort. It is possible to facilitate work with the help of a manual cultivator "Tornado". Its design is surprisingly simple. A handle is attached to one side of the central metal rod, and curved teeth are attached to the other. Moreover, they are turned in relation to the rod against the clock. That's all the inventory for loosening the soil "Tornado" saves gardeners and gardeners from heavy monotonous work.
To work with the cultivator, you need to put it vertically and rotate around the axis. The teeth will gradually screw into the ground. With the help of this tool, the soil is loosened and weeds are destroyed. Moreover, in the process of work there is a uniform distribution of the entire load on the body. The person gets tired less and does more work.
Even in our time, it is quite difficult to do without the simplest agricultural tools, such as ordinary garden rakes. With their help, you can loosen the soil, remove debris on the site and rake mowed grass. This is a common device, invented many years ago, and to this day remains a faithful assistant to gardeners and gardeners.
Construction and materials
The device of this garden tool is quite simple and consists of two parts: a handle and a transverse bar with teeth attached to it, which serves as the working part of the structure. The number and size of teeth can vary for different modifications of the tool and depend on its purpose and the material from which it is made.
Simple garden rakes are most often made from the following materials:
- iron coated with paint (disadvantages: large mass and rapid wear);
- steel (advantage - long service life; disadvantage - very heavy);
- aluminum (advantages: good quality and relatively low weight);
- plastic (dignity - lightness; disadvantage - low strength);
- wood (advantages: lightness and strength).
Currently, you can buy all garden tools in stores, but high-quality metal rakes are quite expensive, and wooden ones are practically non-existent on sale. That is why many summer residents and gardeners prefer to make the tool they need with their own hands.
Wood production
To make the stalk and the main working part with your own hands from wood, you need to stock up on several types of wood. To make a cutting, it is better to take light wood species, for example, these:
- pine - light, moisture resistant, but not too strong;
- birch - light, durable, well machinable;
- poplar - light and easy to process.
To make a working part with teeth with your own hands, you will need harder and more durable types of wood, such as oak, mountain ash, elm, etc. They are quite heavy and difficult to process, but they will last longer.
First you need to make a bar measuring 60x5x3 centimeters from a suitable tree and plan it with a planer. Then, with a drill, drill several holes in the resulting wooden block with a diameter of 1 to 1.5 cm for the teeth at a distance of about 4 cm from one another.
The next stage is the production of teeth. It will be easiest to plan them out of their wooden blanks with a sharp knife. The length of the teeth is from 10 to 12 cm. The shape is any, but the ends of the teeth must be sharpened. It is important to remember that the diameters of the tooth heads should be 1-2 mm larger than the diameters of the drilled holes in the block.
The handle for the tool is usually made straight. It is desirable to sand the surface of the wood with sandpaper. At one end of the future cutting, make a cut about 25 cm long and secure it with a coupler and nails. Then spread the sawn parts in different directions to a width of 15 cm and sharpen each one a little.
Production of metal pipes and fittings
In order to make stronger metal rakes from improvised materials with your own hands, you will need a welding machine.
First you need to find a suitable steel pipe with thin walls and cut off two pieces from it different lengths: one is larger (from 30 to 35 cm), the other is smaller (15 cm). The teeth will be welded on a long segment, and the short one will connect the handle and the working part. Then you need to make about 6-7 teeth up to 15 cm long, sawing them off from the reinforcing bar.
After that, it is required to flatten a long piece of pipe to a flat state (for example, using a sledgehammer or hammer), then weld the teeth to the resulting strip at an equal distance from each other. In the middle of the strip at an angle of 90 degrees to the teeth, weld the handle holder (a short piece of pipe), in which a hole should be drilled for attaching the handle with a self-tapping screw.
Do-it-yourself rakes often become the most convenient and favorite tool for working on the site. This is not surprising, because home-made equipment is adjusted to the physical parameters of its owner, as well as to the types of work for which it was made.
Is it possible to make a fan rake from a coil of steel wire, a holder and scrap metal in the country? Easily! And how to do this in a few minutes and without financial costs, you can find out further in the article.
What are the advantages of a fan tool and what functions does it perform
Regular garden rakes with hard teeth are only meant for raking heavy debris, breaking up large clods of soil, possibly deep loosening of the crust. They are used in a number of pre-sowing operations, but not for treating areas after crop emergence, as they can damage the seedlings and the stems themselves. Similarly, "green areas" should not be treated, as the stems of adult plants can break, even if it is a lawn or any other "flexible" grass.
A garden fan rake is a completely different class of tool that performs similar functions, but does it in a completely different way. They are much lighter, they have very long, flexible guides, the teeth are thin, the weight of the frame is 5-6 times less. Due to these characteristics, they have a lot of advantages in the processing of the site. Let's consider them in detail.
- The teeth, despite the fact that they are placed at an angle of 90 0, do not damage root system herbaceous plants, at the slightest contact with an obstacle, they rise up due to the shock-absorbing action of the stainless steel guide rails. Thus, the lawn and even flowers can be cleaned of dry leaves and other debris without any harm to a healthy plant.
- Increased tooth density. The tool provides for the installation of up to 20-30 "phalanxes" with a frequency of 2 to 5 centimeters, depending on the function that the tool must perform. Thus, a metal fan rake will play the role of a thick comb, and comb out all the small debris. After them, only a clean lawn, a flower meadow remains.
- Possibility of seedbed preparation for exotic crops. The soil fraction turns out to be very small, due to which the germination of whimsical plants increases significantly. Ideal for sowing cyclantera, poppy, asparagus.
- Light weight tool. It is very difficult to guess the total load on the teeth when working with a conventional rake. Here the fan is made of very light wire, due to this you will feel the load that you put on the soil. Ideal for work with seedlings, seedlings and in the cultivation of the soil "by crop" to remove seedlings of annual plants in the upper layers of the soil.
Soil cultivation, as a rule, is combined, that is, different types of rakes are used. Heavy is used to level the soil and break up large clods of earth. The lungs are then used to obtain a fine fraction and subsequent alignment. When caring for seedlings and plants, only fan ones are used, since only they allow you to perform all operations.
We make a work surface from improvised materials
In order to manufacture good tool, you need to find a material of similar quality. Secondly, you need to fasten it correctly in order to guess the weight as accurately as possible. Ease of use and beauty are also important, because, despite the fact that we make a thing with our own hands, it should not be inferior to the factory counterpart in any way. Let's move on to step by step instructions.
Step 1 Making teeth.
First you need to find the right material. Stainless steel wire, which can actually be bent with a solid physical effort, will work best. It does not burst, has excellent flexibility, due to this it can perfectly absorb shocks. The easiest way is to buy 15 meters of 0.4 mm wire at the base or on the market, but it will cost about 250 rubles. To save money, you can go to a scrap metal collection point. There is a lot of such goodness, and 1 kg of wire of the required quality will cost no more than 20 rubles. 1 kg is enough for us to make several rakes. We cut the wire into 50 centimeters. We clamp it with a vise, insert it so that a piece of no more than 5 centimeters peeks out. We hammer it with a hammer to the lips of a vise. We will get an angle of 90 0, exactly what we need. Leave the other end of the wire as is.
Step 2 We set the distance between the teeth.
To do this, we need 2 metal strips about 1.5 mm thick, 15-20 mm wide. Their length should be about 50 centimeters. We also take a 5 mm drill, drill 2 through holes. We insert a 5 mm bolt into them, tighten the nut, cut off the rest with a grinder. We get 2 metal strips, between which the fan will be placed. Now we take a hammer and a sample so that there is something to “compact”. We put the twisted fan on the anvil, put a breakdown between 2 steel wires and with a sharp movement hit the breakdown with a hammer. Do this after each "knitting needle". We get something like funnels - deflections that will limit the movement of steel wires left and right.
Step 3 We fasten the wire to the pipe.
In order to fix a chaotic bud in the pipe, it is necessary to insert all the ends of the wires 5-8 centimeters into the pipe (it is best to take a pipe diameter of 30 mm), and then hammer this edge. With this action, you securely fasten the fan in the pipe, and simply shove a wooden handle into its other edge.
If everything is done correctly, then the workspace should not stagger. If there are any squeaks or backlashes, you can pour a little epoxy into the pipe or “harden” the metal with a hammer to clamp the fan more tightly.
We make a holder with our own hands
It is best to use pine for the manufacture of this tool. The main task is to make a light tool, the weight of which will not cause the death of ornamental plants. The only option when you can use an oak handle or a larch holder is reinforced metal fan rakes. Their wire has a diameter of 0.6 mm, and the metal bar and pipe are much more massive than before. The main task of such a tool is to comb out a thick lawn and remove debris from the territory. They are only 2 times lighter than conventional rakes.
Let's move on to the manufacture of the cuttings.
Step 1 We get raw materials.
We will need an unhewn handle for a chopper, it is a little thinner in diameter, so it will be much lighter than usual. Next, you should remove it under the cone from the end, which will be hammered into the pipe. The diameter of the handle should be 1-2 mm larger than the hole in the pipe in order to plant it more tightly. You can use the old holder from ordinary rakes - it will not be difficult to modify it. Another "revolutionary" option - plastic pipe from the heating system. It is thick-walled, durable and lightweight. The diameter can be taken as 25 mm, for example. The length of the stem doesn't matter. It should be convenient for you to work with him - this is the main indicator of the right size. As a rule, it is 150-165 cm.
Step 2 Finishing.
We immediately cover it with paints and varnishes so that the wood does not rot after a few months of use, and insects do not sharpen their teeth on it. 1 time we process with impregnation or stain, wait until it dries, cover with ordinary varnish.
Step 3 We fasten.
It is recommended to heat the epoxy to a boil, then dip the edge of the handle, which will be inserted into the tube. After you hammer it in there, it will firmly get stuck there, and will never stagger. To be sure, you can hammer a small carnation through the hole that you pre-drill.
If everything is done correctly, then the construction of such a tool will cost you no more than 100 rubles, while a rake bought at a hardware store costs at least 300 rubles. And the quality of "handmade" will be a better level - the reliability is much higher.
Foreword
Exists great amount different rake options, 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, collect grass in stacks after weeding, and manually 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.
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 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!