On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:59:29 -0500, "Peter Reilley"
wrote:

===Now that it is autumn, I have to get out there and rake my leaves before
===the snow covers them. I have an old rake that I have used for years.
===It is the best rake ever made and as you would expect, no longer available.
===
===It has a metal head with spring steel fingers. The rake head is close to
===rectangular with the metal fingers all close to parallel. They do make
===metal
===rakes where the head is the shape of a piece of pie where the fingers
===radiate out from a point. That is both a terrible design to rake leaves
===and all the ones that are available are so poorly made that they soon fall
===apart.
===
===The problem with my rake is that a bunch of the fingers have snapped off.
===They are about 12" long, .3" wide and .03" thick. They are straight except
===for a slight 20 degree bend in the last 2". They have a notch cut into the
===other end to hold them in the head. I would like to make some
===replacements.
===
===The reason that the rake works so well is that it is a natural to use it
===as you would a broom. The spring action of the fingers lets me toss
===pieces of yard rubbish 30 feet to the edge of my yard. You just bend the
===fingers behind the junk and let it lose. You can also bend the fingers
===back over 120 degrees and push large piles of leaves across your lawn.
===You cannot do that with a bamboo rake.
===
===The rake is almost 20 years old and has no name on it. I don't remember
===where I bought it. No stores have anything similar now.
===
===It seems like a typical story; you don't know how great a product is
===until you have used it for years and by then it is no longer available.
===
===Any suggestions where suitable pieces of metal might be available?
===
===Thanks,
===Pete.
===

While someone else suggested a blower, and others suggested a possible
repair, have yo considered a sweeper or a vac cart either push type
by hand or pulled by a lawn tractor or riding mower. They work pretty
darn good for just leaves.

I have to put a plug in for my favorite rake. It had spring steel
round tines of approximately 3/32" diam, and was stiff enough to turn
over without the tines bending and used as a shovel or scoop. Its over
15 years old now and was used hard all the time, but is now missing 6
times from one side as it got put into the impeller on my vac cart by
a careless 18 year old who was tasked with a job he did not want to
do. They did not break but twisted them all together and managled them
pretty darn bad to make the rake unserviceable. I did however add some
from the opther side and made the entire rake narrower which works
fine as a small rake under some shrubs and in tight spots but I would
still prefer my full width I had before. The brand name was Gardenx,
and there is no one on line or around here that handles it anymore.
Its about 2 times what another rake costs but a super rake and not
overly heavy. I sure do not care for plastic rakes.


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