Anyone ever built ..

[amashinga]

or considered building a landscape rake using old leaf springs for tines ? Any thoughts as to why it may or may not work ?

Tks
Bruce

 

[john_bud]

Well, anything will "work" if you lower your expectations enough....

I would guess that the car leaf's would be too wide and too stiff. You can get around that by cutting them long. Long springs bend easier than short ones, but that will get the rake up pretty high.

If you just want to rake trash, it will be ok at a guess. If you want to use it to bust up dirt clods, it won't work so well.

jb

 

[Iplayfarmer]

or considered building a landscape rake using old leaf springs for tines ? Any thoughts as to why it may or may not work ?

Tks
Bruce

Interesting thought. I haven't ever thought about it until you mentioned it. The shape of the leaf springs is different than what I've ever seen for landscape rake tines, but that doesn't have to stop you.

What kind of plans or ideas have you come up with?
What would you plan to do with it?

 

[kennyd]

Agri-Supply has tines from $2.00 for China ones to $4.00 for Italian ones. What's your time worth?
I also don't think leaf springs will work well either...

 

[Eagleview]

It is near impossible to weld spring steel , especially to a mild steel frame , the welds will crystalize the metal and pluck that piece out .

 

[Iplayfarmer]

It is near impossible to weld spring steel , especially to a mild steel frame , the welds will crystalize the metal and pluck that piece out .

Any landscape rakes I've ever seen have the tines bolted to the frame and not welded.

 

[amashinga]

The primary use would be for cleanup, tree branches, brush after cutting etc. I dont have any plans, because the idea is very much in the mulling phase. I am a good muller

The reason I even thought about it is that even $2 a tine adds up quick when you are shipping it to Canada, plus I am the sole breadwinner in the family with a mortgage and the usual bills, so $0 is the kind of cost I try to pay for things.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I think what you'd end up with would be a novel implement that is inspired by a landscape rake. It may very well serve your purposes, but it probably won't have all the same qualities as a standard landscape rake.

It may actually work better for your purposes. It may work worse.

How easy is spring steel to work, anyway? Is it easy to cut or drill?

 

[kcprecision]

Here is a landscape rake that I constructed about 7 years ago. I was looking at the one that Big R had for sale. They were made from light metal maybe 1/8 inch.
I figured that I would have the material in my goodie pile and could make one that would stand some abuse.

I planned on purchasing the tines until I checked the price.

That was when I decided to try the car springs. I had to change the way they would be bolted to the angle iron from the horizontal leg of the angle to the vertical. Have you ever drilled 18 3/8s holes hand drill?

The springs were cut using a plasma cutter and the holes drilled on the drill press using a low speed, sharp drill and plenty of cutting oil.

The pockets at the top of the spring is to keep the spring vertical. I was not going to drill another 18 holes by hand.

The thing does work pretty well, maybe not the way that tines would have worked but for my purposes it is OK.

 

[Eagleview]

Any landscape rakes I've ever seen have the tines bolted to the frame and not welded.

You are correct , but a lot of the home made ones i have seen , the guy has just grabbed the welder and welded them on and they have broken off . I was simply advising of the risks to anyone reading this thread who may not have known and taken this route .

With proffesional tynes the holes are made before they are tempered . With car springs you are trying to drill through hardened spring steel , one false move and the hole will work harden and without expert help you wont get past this hard spot . I take my hat off to kcprecision for drilling those 18 holes , i bet he was ready for a beer after that .

 

[dqdave1]

Can you burn holes through spring steel without problems?

 

[Eagleview]

Very rough cut , lots of slag and destroys the temper .

 

[Iplayfarmer]

You are correct , but a lot of the home made ones i have seen , the guy has just grabbed the welder and welded them on and they have broken off . I was simply advising of the risks to anyone reading this thread who may not have known and taken this route .

Oh, Good observation. Point taken.

With proffesional tynes the holes are made before they are tempered . With car springs you are trying to drill through hardened spring steel , one false move and the hole will work harden and without expert help you wont get past this hard spot . I take my hat off to kcprecision for drilling those 18 holes , i bet he was ready for a beer after that .

Interesting you mention that. I had an old homemade trailer I bought off a guy a few years ago, and drilling holes in the frame to put new decking on was a struggle. About every third hole would go right through, but with all the others I'd get partway through and the bit would just stop cutting. I could go to a new hole and it would cut, but I couldn't get anything out of the partial holes. I wonder if I was experiencing that "work hardening" you mentioned. I eventually did have to resorted to expert help in the form of a fabricator that lives up the road a ways from me.

 

[Eagleview]

Many things can cause "work hardening" including using a dull drill bit or relaxing your push even a little as the bit is cutting . Instead of a nice spiral of swarf coming out of the hole and ejecting the hot metal , the drill may spin on the spot for a few seconds , heat the metal and it's all over . Sometimes you can get around this by turning the piece over and drill from the other side . Or using a die grinder and a tungsten bit , grind off the hard surface and resume drilling once it's gone . Another thing that is happening lately is a lot of recycled steel is being used . It is a conglomerate of every type of steel that was in the scrap yards . Hardened steels , bearings , diff gears etc. all end up in the pot and it is not uncommon to find a hard spot in a piece of mild steel where it has'nt mixed 100% .

 

[CCWKen]

A carbide bit will drill right through a spring. I've used concrete bits and touched them to a green wheel to sharpen the cutting edges. Use a drill press. Ease off the pressure as it breaks though the other side. Use a coolant of your choice. If you canter the bit with a hand drill, it WILL break the carbide insert. But, the concrete bits are cheap.

If you have an A/O set up, you can spot heat where you need the hole(s). Heat to yellow and let it cool. Drill with a standard bit with coolant. You don't need "spring" where the hole is anyway.

 

[Groo]

If you have an A/O set up, you can spot heat where you need the hole(s). Heat to yellow and let it cool. Drill with a standard bit with coolant. You don't need "spring" where the hole is anyway.

unless you have a long backbone holder, you do need the spinginess very near the hole, or it will just bend.

 

[Egon]

The springs should work nicely in my opinion. I use several as bolt on forks for the bucket on my little tractor.

Drilling the holes can be an aggravating procedure requiring the constant sharpening of the bit. Using a torch and reamer will be much quicker. Even better is if you could find enough springs that are all the same and have a center hole already in them.

 

[Eagleview]

I do'nt want to be a wet blanket but i was thinking about the concept today and i think that the leaf springs will store a lot of energy when snagged . That stored energy when released could propel a stone at high velocity straight at you . Or even snap the tyne off and throw itself at you . The ones i have seen have a different curve on the tyne which would have interferance with the ground as it returns , disapating the energy .

 

[kcprecision]

Iron Horse you are right, they will throw gravel at you but not as bad as you might expect. But it only takes one.