ripper vs. root rake

gusbratz

Member
I am clearing about 2 acres of heavily wooded property next to my house with the intention of turning it into a field. I will be digging all the stumps with my antique case 530 with a homemade ripping claw. Then I was thinking of building a root rake for my TD6 dozer to get the roots out. But then I also thought of just making a bracket to mount the already built home made ripping claw to the blade of the dozer. I always see rippers on the back, why not on the front? I know it would take longer to get the roots out with only 1 ripper vs. a whole bunch of teeth on a root rake but I think I would make up the time by not having to fab all winter to make a rake. Then again it may be nice to have a rake to break up my ½ mile long driveway once a year. Any opinions on those 2 questions.
Here is my home made claw.
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Interesting question. I've run D8K's with 4bbl rippers in rock, frost and what have you, same D8K with a Fleco or similar mfr root rake, after the buncher feller and tub grinder in thickly wooded areas. This was after the majority of the stumps were pulled. For that task, you can cover quite a bit of ground that way.

In theory, rippers, root rakes are similar, there is no doubt if one was to properly fabricate one, (strong enough, braced or stiffened and similar) using appropriate materials, may not be good for ripping rock but should work well for root raking, basically what you want, and to scarify the driveway, should work fine. You make those shanks and teeth too long and try and really sink it in, that could present some problems, but it sounds theres no real need for that.

A multi or single shank ripper on the back like the parallelogram style on the 8K's really had some down pressure and force, meant for heavy ripping, really something to marvel at remembering the power combined with the weight.

I do not think the rear mount ripper would be all that great for root raking as its going to eventually trap roots and similar things under it, you'll have to clear it before it gets too high, hence the front mount being more desirable.

Single shank on the front, going to take a lot longer, more run time, undercarriage wear. I think you may be happier with some sort of stout rake fabricated for the purpose. Given the forces at work, you may want to look at similar attachments for fabrication ideas, strengthening, stiffening, could still bend or deform some too. I've seen a lot of home built ones, very useful when needed.

Assuming the push arms, blade, trunions and track frames are certainly built for the dozer blade, a front rake ought to be within what the crawler can handle, but I'd not want to create something too aggressive or really put the power to it, meaning not overdoing it. I'd vote for the front mount rake, probably take some time, but worth it, take a look at Fleco, and or heavy duty multishank rippers to get some ideas. The one we had on the 8K was very productive in the sandier top soils in NJ. Large rocks are probably the worst enemy of these, more so with a home built one if not reinforced enough, but with light to moderate penetration in cleaner soils they sure sort out those roots, we would next bring in the scrapers to strip topsoil, still needed screening but was not bad once the root rake was run through it.
 
my bucket has made itself into one of those a couple of times now LOL, thats why i built the ripper. i sure do love that ripper, a big stump can be out in 20 minutes with it vs. 3 hours and a hole you could drive a car into with my 12" bucket.
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another negative on a single shank is they tend to just break or cut thru the roots and leave them buried...a rake will take longer sections of root systems out.
 
yes it will break them up, but the big picture is i am trying to get this land in shape to plow and farm. part of me would like to use a rake and get them all out but on the other hand just breaking them up and then turning over the dirt i could plant grass on it for 2 or 3 years and i think a lot of it would rot and be gone. if i rake it all into a giant pile a lot of my top soil is going to be mixed in with it and wash away when it rains.
 
I really like your ripper.
Could you find one of the root rakes that hangs on an existing blade? It would be much easier to make one fit than to fabricate one.
 
Ok, so I’m going to build a root rake out of some stuff I have been collecting. A piece of 8" pipe across the blade with 12" long teeth made of 1" plate sticking down. Can anyone recommend the spacing on the teeth and do you think it would be too much if I made it the full width of my blade? Here is my td6-62 dozer.
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If at all possible you should consider bringing in a stump shear. I cleared 6 acres of timber and found it to be the greatest time saver of any single piece of equipment used. It cuts the roots then extracts the stump leaving the ground more intact. There is no reason to extract a huge mushroom of stump, rock and dirt to later dispose of. There is FAR less to get rid of by leaving most of the roots in the ground to rot. I have a root rake for my D3B which I lightly went over the clearings with. The root rake made short work of getting the top network of small vine like roots out of the way. It is a good tool. No reason to go any more than 6-8 inches deep in my case. All that did was bring up more and bigger rocks.

I then used my D7-3T to grade for camber and drainage. The 2" grousers really crunch stuff to bits.

I had been told that bringing in bog harrow with 3' discs would be a good idea but I found that unnecessary. I just got it raked and graded then went over it with my disc harrows and spread a LOT of lime. I'll go back over it with the harrows next spring then york rake in more lime, fertilizer and seed.
 

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