Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Backhoe/Excavator Bucket Rake

For several years I've been wanting to make a rake that bolts onto the teeth of the 30 inch bucket that I use on my backhoe and my friend's excavator.

I want to use it to clean leaves and debris from my settling ponds, culverts, ditches, and out as far as the arms will reach into the edges of my ponds.

My plan is to use landscape rake tines that will mount on a pieces of steel that is 32-inches long by 4-inches wide, by 1/2-inch thick. (I have this piece). I plan to make my own "C" clamps by welding pieces to the ends of the plate mentioned above to hold welded 3/4" nuts. Using 3/4" bolts, I would clamp this to the back side of my bucket teeth. I could then hopefully scrape up the debris, let it drain, and then curl it into the bucket that could be dumped several feet away.

The normal bucket teeth are just too aggressive, and spaced too far apart to to this.

Has anybody else seen do something as crazy? If so, I'd sure like to see photos.

In any case, I'd like some opinions and suggestions.

I'd really like to weld the landscape rake tines to the bar, but I think I'll have to bolt them on. I'm afraid that welding them would destroy their spring temper.

Thanks,
Ken

Ken, I think that it would depend on how deft you are with the controls. It has been my experience that those landscape rake tines, though tempered, can't take a lot of pressure. If you are dropping it into the water, and lose sight of the depth in the mud, I think you'd probably overload the tines pretty easily.

The idea is valid, but I'd go heavier on the construction, maybe 2x2x1/4 tubing for the tines.

Just my thoughts.

Mark

catmandoo,a friend of mine made something very similar to what you want to do.They used it for cleaning up debris in hard to reach areas from wrecks for the most part.Mobilus is right though the tines can get bent pretty easy if not careful.Here is a quick pic of something that's close to what he did I dont know if you are willing to drill too many holes in the bucket but in order to keep from bending the tines he made his hinged.He then used 2 heavy duty springs that go from the bar with the tines/rake to the other side of the bucket and attached them with shear pins he had from a snow blower,after it is pinned in place you just tension the springs with a turn buckle.

Catmandoo when i get to the office tommorrow i will post a link to a company that makes an attachment that may fit what you are looking for. I seen one of there attachment modified awhile back in La. Being ised to dredge vegetation and made some notes about it kust incase i ever came across the need for one.

Here i found it on google. Go link and scroll to bottom.
http://leattach.com/rake.htm

I will post my notes tommorrow on the modifications.

Maybe something like this? (from loaders.com)



I have Westendorf BC-400 grapple, and want to build this to fit it. If I understand your proposed application, you'd use it in reverse of this design, right? Pulling back from farthest reach back to the shore, correct? Anyway, I think this construction is what you should base yours on.

Yes, I'm looking at using a landscape rake like what Robert posted - but about half that width, mounted on my backhoe bucket.

I now use a 6-foot landscape rake on the tractor's 3-point hitch. But it has to be pretty dry, or drought conditions. Here is a photo of one my ponds after I did a cleanup when the water was way down, and things were pretty dry.



With the water down that low, I was probably able to get out at least 10-15 feet from the full-pool shoreline. It pulls out a lot of debris.

But, it has its downsides, especially if I back the tractor down a just little too far.



I have a frame mount backhoe for the little tractor, and I have use of this little excavator. With either, I can put a pretty light touch on the bucket down pressure. Both have a float mode also (no hydraulic down pressure).



Ive got a lot of culverts and small settling ponds that I try to keep debris free too. I want to use the rake to leave most of the water and mud, but just take the leaves and sticks. Using the full bucket puts a lot of water wherever I'm piling, and that really makes things slippery. And, when things get slippery ...

I'm going to call these guys for more info. Thanks.

Love your pics, Cat. Been there, done that with my compact tractor in my pond's mud bottom.
Maybe you're aware of a couple tractor user websites? tractorforum.com and tractorbynet.com? There are posters on these two that have fabricated equipment for lots of uses, some prolly similar to yours. You just might get some help or ideas from them. I was able to get ideas that have led me to log skidding help. I'm working thru design ideas for a tractor bucket brush rake that I could self build.
Good luck. And, needless to say, don't put that machine of yours out there in the water for too long; the fish will colonize it.
Roger

I also worry about your ability to gauge bottom resistance. And while I do think that a lighter machine such as what you show in your photos would be beneficial in this regard, you will still be working blind, and proceeding by feel....I'm not sure how much you will be able to unintentionally crowd the tines before breakage occurs.

I'm a huge fan of keeping things simple, but I wonder in this case if a spring trip design might work in your favor. Similar to a snowplow.....the driver can't always see what he or she is about to run over, so the blades are made to trip backwards under heavy impact rather than risk breakage.

I'm about 50% though building one of these for my backhoe...I tried the rock rake solution and what others have said is true...without the ability to accurately gauge the bottom the teeth bend pretty easily. I'm making a 'weed rake' out of 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 by 1/4 angle iron welded to a piece of C channel. I figure if I bend that I wasn't paying attention. I'm adding a little piece of I beam to mine so it extends about 4 feet beyond the end of the bucket, so I can better see what I'm doing.

When I get it done I'll post pics.

Dale -- I'd be very interested in pictures when you get it built. One of my concerns of using rock rake tines was all the drilling I was going to have to do in 1/4 inch thick angle I was planning to attach them to. I really would like to weld the entire thing together. I was going to start it soon, but I'm going to now wait to see how yours works out. I usually don't do my debris cleanout until around August or September when the water is at the lowest. So, I've got time to wait.

Thanks,
Ken

Ken is your pond bottom all clay/dirt/etc? The only issue I see with my design is that if you have a rocky area you're going to tear something up likely. I've only got riprap on my pond dam, nowhere else, so I'll likely not have any problems.

Everything where I've got ponds is clay. My grow-out and sediment settling ponds were just dug with the backhoe or excavator, and were never even compacted. They all hold water as good as any well designed swimming pool.

These photos of my "put-and-take" pond will give you an idea of what the sides and bottom of my ponds looked like when built. After we got the roots and stumps out, we mostly had good clean clay with few rocks in it.








This pond filled in about three days and has been at full pool ever since. The trench you see across the dam in the bottom photo is the emergency spillway that I lined with landscape cloth and rip rap. Water has never flowed through it. But that is about the only place I have a lot of rocks in the pond areas.

Looks really nice! OK I likely won't get the rake done this weekend...I'm told my focus this weekend is Pinewood Derby cars. But I'll try to get some time on it the following weekend.

Cat I can not find my exact notes. From Best as I remember they had Bent/ rolled about 3/8" flat bar just a little. This was wide enough to leave about a less than 1/4" wide between the flat bar and the fingers. They had welded a heavy schedule metal (maybe 1/2" ID) pipe to the back of these flat bars just big enough to fit between the fingers. And they where staggered up and down on every other one so the bolts would not hit each other. These where bolted between the fingers in the middle section between the 2 bars in the middle section of the rake. I was told that was so they could replace 1 flat bar piece as needed without having to undo all of them. Basically it was some of that home engineering done to that rake to give it like a bucket effect between those to center bars to lift smaller stuff out without it falling between the fingers. It seemed to work pretty well to me as I watched it for about 30 min. working on the side of the road / house in a small canal. The phone I took pics from was dropped into the water on that trip so I do not have the pics I took of the modified rake. It was on a soso sized cat excavator.