Pickup rakes
/ bundling rakes and debris collection assisted rakes are becoming popular.
Although pickup rakes are not a new concept, many of the early developers
were unable to make their designs function. Earlier designers envisioned
a lever actuation method that was not mechanically possible. Had the inventors
realized the impossibility of their lever designs, the pickup rakes we
see today would have been discovered much earlier. However, it is interesting
to note that the currently successful methods of cords and deflection means
were mostly described in Fite's 1955 patent for a pickup rake. Had Fite
realized and continued to develop his design, he most probably would have
succeeded. Recently developers have realized that pulley systems
are both reliable and effective thereby enabling many older designs to
be successfully modified.
Pickup rakes
are classified in 4 major groups according to the method of grasping the
debris pile;
1) CIRCUMFERENTIAL
2) TRANSVERSE
3) RADIAL
4) PADDLE
Of special note
is the circumferential method which was brought to market as the "Leaf
Grabber". This American made rake had several disappointing features including
raking ability. Oddly, while major rake manufacturers were developing their
ergonomic rake concepts in hoping to produce a better rake, the marketing
of this circumferential pickup rake was unraveling these raking precepts
in an opposite direction.
Of the transverse
designs of special note the "One Step Rake" has recently achieved some
marketing success using a force multiplying pulley system. The designers
successfully applied a modified fixed and runner pulley system to a traditional
transverse pickup rake head. Another pickup rake using pulleys is the "Canada
Rake" which is of the radial type only with a traditional rake head.
Of the paddle
types the "Truetemper" product now owned by the American rake giant "Ames"
is the best example. It is composed of a standard rake head adapted
to support a detachable enlarged hand. The added difficulty of using this
type of additional feature may be equal to any advantage in leaf collecting
quantities and truly seems to be unraveling ergonomic precepts where pickup
rakes such as the "One Step Rake" and "Canada
Rake" seem to have solved many of these problems. In addition, it has
not been proven that paddle type pickup rakes with extra large paddles
or enlarged hands are essential to quantitative collection of debris such
as grass clippings, damp or decomposing matter.
