The humble leaf rake is probably one of the most widely used arborist tools. Cleaning up after a chipping operation, general raking or hedge trim tidy-up - they take a beating and most of them fall apart within a very short space of time.
Treetools stopped selling the cheaper domestic plastic and wire-tine rakes late last year due to continual product failure. Before we re-stocked we tested six rake models we thought might be able to stand up to everyday use by arborists. Two of the selected models were made by Wolf-Garten in Germany and the NZ Wolf importer felt sure they would live up to expectations.
All six test rakes went into the field with a number of Auckland arborists overDecember-January. As a comparison the 'domestic' rakes were lasting less than one week so this was quite long period for testing. The clear winner in therake stakes was the German-made 43cm wide, 24-tooth plastic rake from Wolf.The arborist companies trialling the rakes were so pleased with the Wolf model they paid for the 'used' test rakes and bought six more on-the-spot! UnfortunatelyWolf no longer make the winning rake so Treetools bought up all available stock to make sure New Zealand arborists have access to the best equipment available- even the humble leaf rake.
