[Glosterboy]

I am totally confused

My lawn is 75% moss (about 100sq yds). A lot

Do I require a Lawnraker or Scarifier? What is the difference between the two types of machines? There appears to be two types of working/cutting blades. Metal cutters or spring wire blades. What is the better/preferred option?

Ar??s, B&? etc etc have all got gardening offers on at the moment. What is my desired machine to eradicate this moss? So that I can start working on the lawn to enable a healthy grass growth.

Thanks.

[dorimower]

At home here we gave our front lawn (120sq yds-ish) a sorting with a late 1980s Atco  electric lawn raker last weekend.  It is a machine that was based on the then Qualcast RE35DL mower with a drum of spring combs in lieu of the cutting cylinder.  I usually go over the lawn at this time of year in 4 directions collecting the rakings in the machine box and then tipping onto a sheet to cart it away...and then vacuum up any bits left loose with a rotary mower.. I gave our old Wolf E30 Cub a run out for this job.
 Then a day later I mowed the lawn with the regular mower which is a 1969 Atco 14" battery cylinder mower....and then hand broadcast on some granular fertiliser...nothing too fierce just a light general feed up.

The plan was mainly to remove the dead thatch of a long cold Winter...there is a bit of moss but in the shade of the fence side but the grass usually beats this once growing well.

The raker is such that it could be used for a light single pass at any time in the growing season just to lift the grasses that tend to sprawl flat to give that lovely upright fresh growth again once mown.

At work we have a 1995 Hayterette 5hp rotary mower, the version with solid cutterbar rather than disc and swinging blade, and this has a commercially made thatcher blade fitted...it has 2 replaceable sprung tines that bolt to the end..this can do a fiercer job than our home lawn raker so has to be adjusted down with care.   Between passes over the lawn we rake up with Chelwood plastic tine lawn rakes..and finally again a vacuum up with a rotary mower.  The thatcher bar is sold by some of the pattern spare parts companies and can fit other machines but is the sort of thing that would load up and damage the wrong machine...and would definitely invalidate any new machine warranty.....

We then have a rotavator that has a set of spiking tines on that we run over the lawn to help aeration.

My only dealing with petrol powered tined scarifiers was back in the early 1980s with a commercial petrol machine and later a domestic petrol scarifier.  The first had a line of fixed metal tines spaced around a shaft... it was great when the tines were fresh and new as they presented a good pointed edge to lift out lawn debris but wore down quickly in hire use getting set perhaps too low? and once the tine point had gone it got set even lower to achieve a result, in time labouring up the machine..causing even more wear. Really I feel  it was a specific site machine where it would be great maintaining some greens..but was getting hammered in hire use..each user wanting to maximise use of it once hired.!!
 The domestic machine was similar but with more flail like tines I seem to recall.?...again perhaps best as a one user machine rather than hiring it out.

I stress that this is a historical reference....and I'm not up to speed on current hire machines.  But anyway these tined machines do do a bigger job than any sprung tine machines.

The other thing being that moss is there often due to damp shaded conditions and it is only removal of these conditions that really cure the job.

It would perhaps be possible to treat the lawn with a moss killer and then leave a while before scarifying out.??...but this is not something I have any experience of.

At work our large main lawns have plenty of moss this year...but once the grass gets underway it usually beats the grass to give a reasonable effect ..so we concentrate any efforts on some smaller more formal areas of lawn only.

I hope you are not more confused now at my musings. ...it's not quite an answer but just an account of what we do.

"Dori"  

[Gwiz]

Hello Glosterboy,
I have used both types of machine (spring tines and "bladed types") our company uses both in petrol. I've found (as the bloke who fixes them) that the bladed type works equally well as the spring tine machine, and tends to last a bit longer before the "business end" has to be replaced.
The spring tines tend to break a little too often for my liking if you go into the thatch a little too vigorously
I remember well the electric machine that Dorimower mentioned (Atco), I must have sold hundreds of those, as well as the Qualcast and Black and Decker varients in a past life as a machinery salesman. (I always thought they were quite good value for money) Dori's machine must be now 20 years old, so it goes to show how well they will last if used correctly!

[dorimower]

Hello Graham,

  Yes, I tend to forget how old the Atco is....It was an old stock machine at the time of purchase...and had a couple of features extra to the then Qualcast machine....can't think what they were now.    Although one was that it has 4 brackets to wind the cable onto.....as someone who was at the time seeing to lots of electric mowers this was quite an important feature...as most electric machines arrived into the workshop with cable as a knotted heap.

It is still on its original toothed belt....I do keep a spare in stock....and it did break a spring last weekend.....so that's 2 gone now. ...I will fear to use it now...in case they all go ping now I have spoken.

I will add that it is used on a formal front lawn that is regularly cylinder mowed reasonably short.

"Dori"

[Glosterboy]

Thanks to you both for the very useful information.

I have my eye on a Qualcast Scarifier. Currently on offer in B&*. This particular machine has spring wire blades at the working end. So, if a spring wire blades breaks/snaps. Can it not be replaced? Or what is the option?

Thanks again.

[Gwiz]

Well, to the best of my knowledge (which isn't all that much these days ) you can replace the tines. I think most people wait untill they have snapped more than one or two!

[dorimower]

I am just not familiar with the current machines...(as is apparent from my earlier posting ...1969 Atco mower, 1980s Atco raker, 1991 Wolf E30 Cub rotary mower)....so it is best to ask in the store.

Meanwhile, I think the tines listed on this link which I post just  for reference are the ones that fit our old machine...
http://www.mowermagic.co.uk/acatalog/QUALCAST_Other_Misc_Spares.html

I've been waiting for that second one to break ..perhaps now I should buy some spares.

"Dori"

[Mosslane]

We have just purchased a Bosch AVR1100 - they call it a verticutter.
We bought a cheap power devil lawn rake with the spring tines (2nd hand off ebay) but our grass just murdered it in about half an hour and you can not replace the tines.
This Bosch has blades in place of tines and will rake or aerate dependant on the height you set it at.
We have just done one quick pass over a small area of our grass and filled 2/3 of our green wheelie bin. It's amazing what it gets out of the grass. We have about 800 sq meters of grass and as you can tell from my forum name we have a lot of moss Not a cheap machine but if you have a large garden well worth it.