Yard Tuff Acreage Rake, 4 Tine Steel Tow Behind Dethatcher for Lawn & Garden, 48 Inch

If you look at the tines on the rake wheels, you can see that they are bent. I discovered something interesting in the way people look at things. Consider if the outer end of the tine is positioned so it looks like a greater than sign, >. My interpretation of this was that the tine was pointing to the left since that is where the last, pointy part (the tip) of it was located and what contacts the ground. The person putting this together with me thought it pointed to the right because it was shaped like an arrow. Thank goodness we had the internet to resolve this discussion, since the illustrations in the manual were entirely ambiguous. Northerntool has a manual for the six-wheel with actual photographs and better instructions and it can be downloaded as a pdf. Quite a few crucial directions were omitted. The lift arms are offset. Assembling lift arms with the offset towards inside will make a narrower space when raking. We were just happy to put it together with the hole for the chain attachment on top and didn’t consider the offset until after it was bolted on and the chain would not reach the retaining hook on the axle assembly. Once that was corrected, finding where to insert the cotter pin was funny. From the manual instructions, it appeared to insert vertically. We eventually found a tiny hole in the hook itself that runs side-to-side in the same direction as the axles. The cotter pin is the lightest weight one that I have ever seen. I’m already looking for an alternative because this doesn’t have enough tension to hold itself in place. If the chain did come loose, the pin would just bend in half. We found it helpful to attach the wheels early on and then hook the tongue to our lawn tractor. Everything was held in place for the rest of the assembly. The hitch pin is unusually small in diameter as is the hole in the hitch. This means we can’t use the same hitch pin that works on every other implement we own unless we drill out the hitch. For now we are using the one that came with the rake. The rake tine wheels are each weighted in the center. I really appreciate not needing to strap on cinder blocks to weight it down. For raking, the tine wheels should be mounted with the tips of the tines pointed toward the center, so that the tips on the left are oriented like this < and the tine tips on there right are like this >. For dethatching, they should point to the outside, ><. All in all, the rake wasn’t terrible to assemble. We needed three sizes of wrench. It worked best to have two ratcheting socket wrenches for attaching the lift arms. Enough about putting it together, does the thing work? Well, yes it does. We had it hooked up to a John Deere X360. I tried it on the lawn first. There wasn’t anything on the surface to rake since it is Spring and we use a mulching mower. It seemed to be dethatching, but really is just removed some of the recently mowed grass. The pasture was covered in long, cut grass. We had four horses eating on it and they still couldn’t keep up with the Spring growth. The rake does a nice job of forming the raked material into a single line that can then be collected. I took it slow, but didn’t have any trouble even though the pasture grass is fairly coarse. The clumps of organic fertilizer caused no problems and neither did the areas of uneven ground. Collecting the raked grass from the rows is much, much easier than raking it all by hand. In truth, I thought this was a waste of money, but after using it for a while, I'm coming around. The line of grass that has been raked is all on the top and it is easy work to come back along and rake it into piles to pick up and haul away. The grass had dried well and I've been feeding some of it to the goats. We had a few occasions where the loose grass on the ground was so thick that the grass balled up in front of the tine wheels and was just carried along. We had to stop and clear it before continuing. That grass was all in a nice pile ready to be picked up. Converting to dethatch mode is simple. Both wheel assemblies need to be removed by taking out the lock pin. The assemblies then are swapped left goes to right, right goes to left and the arms are rotated 180 degrees (flipped over). The wheel assembly arms have a longer and shorter side and the longer sides go toward the middle. On the right wheel assembly, the long arm is on the left. It is on the trailing wheel. I was impressed with how much thatch was pulled up by this unit. It is much more convenient having the thatch pulled together in the center rather than having to rake the entire lawn. I like having a tool that will both rake and dethatch. I debated whether to buy this model that is 48 inches wide or the 60-inch model. For raking and the pasture, the 60-inch would have been more efficient. I hay rake would be even better, but the cost is much higher. The lawn around the house in only about an acre and has landscaping to go around, so the 48-inch model is more useful. The smaller model won. Everything on the rake itself feels well made. The tubing a decent thickness. The tines have held up so far. Only time will tell for the long term durability, but so far, all seems good.

We have a lot of property that needs regular thatching. Even though this doesn't look like the thatcher you normally see, it works very well. When you take everything out of the box, lay out the parts according to the diagram. If you run into trouble, THEN read the instructions. If you go step by step (again, looking at the picture) you'll do fine. Once you begin to thatch, if you don't like the pattern of the rows, all you have to do is flip the 4 round parts the other way. If I had to give you a down-side to this rake it would be that the rake is large and the "fingers" could be harmful to pets and kids so find a safe place to put it when not in use.

Instructions to put together not clear

I purchased a 48" acreage rake from a supplier named Spreetail on Amazon. It is sold by the moniker, "Yard Tuff 48" Heavy Duty Steel". This is all but heavy duty. I used it last fall to rake up pine needles. It worked beautifully. I then stored it indoors for the winter and I end up with what you see in the photo. I tried using it now for the second time in six months and a welded connection at the front of the rake yoke broke off. I had to jury rig some lumber to the yokes to get it to work. I would think for a tool that cost nearly $400 I would be able to use it more than twice.

The unit came with chains that were to short to suspend spindles off ground. Had to buy my own to replace. Support or customer service non existent. To thatch properly you have to Add 5lbs to each arm. Engineering is so so. We’ll see how long it hold up. Typical poor company integrity. Once they sell it they don’t care.

Use the thatch installation. Does a better job. Yes you will have to do it 2 or 3 times in different directions. The first time you will not notice a big difference. After the third time you realize you have to pick up all that junk. I use a lawn sweeper with the optional thatcher attachment. If you go too fast it will bounce. I lowered the tire pressure in this and my lawn tractor (17 hp), helped a little. If you go to slow it doesn't do much. At the correct speed you can watch it spin and dethatch. I highly recommend. Better than the dethatcher that drags the tines. This actually rakes.

Its called a acreage rake but It might work on a few leaves but thats it. My husband did not tell me that it wasn't working for a month or so so I didn't know. Support pins broke with 1st usage. He replaced with heavy duty steel ones, the rake was so light it bounced when being used but raked nothing up. He added weights as some reviews said to do on the rake support arms and it worked...sorta. overall very much unhappy with this product. We have 2 acres we maintain, and this product is pretty but useless.

The Yard Tuff is the best rake/de-thatcher that I've ever owned. I currently have a John Deere D130 with a tow behind de-thatcher. The John Deere thatcher tore up my lawn more than it thatched it. Its now for sale on ebay The Yard Tuff works as advertised and doesn't require any weights. It pulled out all the thatch in my lawn which is 1 acre. Just the thatch not he lawn. Its easy to assemble and doesn't take up a lot of space in my shed If your on the fence this is the unit to buy

Does not handle longer grass clippings , works well otherwise.

Not as good as anticipated

It works fine. Not much there for the money

Smaller than I thought it would be and a little on the light duty side