The traditional hay making season is almost over but it’s brought with it a peak in demand for hay rakes this year and I’ve had a few orders to fulfill.
I’ve recently taken to using a giant pencil sharpener (otherwise known as a veritas tapered dowel cutter) to put a consistent taper on the end of the tines and it does make the rake look neater.
I’ve mainly been making the split handle style – which I call the ‘Sussex Rake’
But I do sometimes make the rake with the bow support which I call the ‘Dorset Style’.I was taught to nail the bow onto the handle, but I know that some people pass the bow through a hole drilled in the handle. I suspect that there are as many variations in style as there are rake makers!
Even though its very fresh cut the hazel hoop will rarely adopt the sharp radius needed for the hoop without breaking so some gentle persuasion is necessary, gradually working the bend into the wood bit by bit until after a few minutes it will take the curve without breaking. Of course you could steam it to achieve the same result as I do over my knee.
I enjoy making and using rakes. Over the coming year I’ll be experimenting with some adjusted designs more appropriate for garden use and also for bracken raking. There are few rake making workshops left in the country which might give the impression that wooden rake making is a dying craft. But I don’t believe so, around Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset there are plenty of rakes being made in a wide range of styles by woodsmen, coppice workers, greenwood workers and estate workers who hand make their rakes alongside other products and supply locally as they always have done. In my view the future of wooden rakes lies more with these woodland workers than in workshops. But then as a woodsman and a self confessed jack-of-all-trades I am biased and banging my own drum here!
Nice pictures! The dowel cutter looks good – I have a feeling what I use for my arrows is actually a pencil-sharpener …
So I was making a surfboard rack, which is a lot like a rake, and I wondered: do you use a drill press, or how else do you make sure that the tines really are perpendicular to the head of the rake? Or is it rustic and charming that the tines should not all be coplanar?
Great surfboard rake Jeff!
I’m not sure I can reveal all the mystical arts of rustic rake making? The first heads I drilled with a brace and bit were truly all over the place, though it makes little or no difference to the performance of the rake. I have got better and along the way I’ve acquired some interesting handdrills including a chest brace and a wheelbrace both of which promise to futher improve accuracy of drilling. But yes I have been known to use a drill press on occasion when I have a few heads to be made and I can borrow time on a drill press in the next door workshop.
good to hear from you and take care,
Mark
Glad to see you are using quality Canadian stuff. I went round the Lee Valley and Veritas manufacturing facility in Ottawa earlier this year, where they make such tools. Met Mr Robin Lee himself. I have a store five minutes from work, they know me far too well in there…….