The Harley Power M6 Box Landscape Rake offers fast, effective and economical service.
- Ability to work poor quality ground
- Heavy duty tines
- Adjustable control wheels
- Internal adjustable urethane blade
- Piped via quick-release couplings
ABC Landscapes Ltd undertakes all types of contracting work. One piece of equipment that is very important to the speedy completion of their work is the company’s M6 model, Harley Power Box Landscape Rake.
These units are made by USA-based company, Paladin Construction Group, and ABC’s one is attached to a CAT 247 tracked skid steer loader.
Harley Power M6 Box Landscape Rake
The Harley Rake makes use of a “Power Roller”, which has heavy duty spikes (tines) mounted to a spinning horizontal cylinder. In a similar way to a rotary hoe, it prepares the ground to a required depth (up to 75mm), readying it for grass seed or planting.
Adjustable control wheels ensure that the correct depth is always maintained and the rake can be easily tweaked in various ways to operate efficiently in varying ground and moisture conditions.
An internal adjustable urethane blade is an important part of the rake set-up and plays a crucial role in achieving a well groomed finish. Like some bully blades, the rake angle on this particular model can be hydraulically adjusted (via a toggle switch) 20 degrees either way to provide better attack lines when working a site. Like most skid steer loader attachments, the Harley Rake couples up easily, and is ready for use in just a few minutes.
POWER PLANT
Piped via quick-release couplings to the skid steer loader, a small hydraulic motor runs a heavy duty oil-bathed double chained drive, which in turn spins the “Power Roller”. A feed also peels off for the angle rams.
PERFORMANCE AND HANDLING
According to the Harley Rake manual, the most efficient operating range for the Power Roller is 270rpm, with a recommendation to reduce rpms slightly when working in heavy rock. Likewise, ground speed should be limited to 3-5mph, however I would say a good operator would adjust everything to get a site looking “just right”, and practice would be the key to achieving that.
Our test site was suffering severely from heavy rain a day earlier. The CAT247 pointed the rake towards a pile of something that looked like it contained more water than soil. To say I was shocked that anything could actually be done with that stuff would be an understatement! I was very impressed with the machine’s ability to work in those conditions.
I noticed that, like a rotary broom sweeper, the Power Roller spins against the direction that the machine is moving, thereby flicking larger pieces of soil/mud/wood/rock away from the machine. It also passes good soil over the top of the roller and through a gap in the adjustable urethane blade, landing it back on the ground in the space between the rake and the front tracks of the loader. This process also helped pulverise and aerate the soil, while leaving a trail of fine material in its wake.
With a forward pass completed, and the oversize/rubbish pushed to the end of the pass, the skid steer was reversed. Again, the Power Roller reversed direction to work opposite the way the skid steer was travelling, and the fine clean soil was then groomed into a nice finish. An excavator dumped decent sized rock in a pile, and stacked soil on top.
The Harley Rake made very quick work of separating the rock from the soil, and with the Power Roller flicking the pile of rocks ahead of itself, the CAT247 did not appear to be pushing much of the load, judging by the way the tracks maintained their forward motion.
The Harley Rake has certainly earned a well-deserved thumbs-up from me.
Photography: Randolph Covich