How to make a bamboo rake? [Archive]

Mark Meckes

2nd January 2005, 02:47 PM

Hi Keith,
This would be a great workshop project!
Of course there are many different types and sizes of rakes, and the skills that make them into a fine art.
What makes rakes interesting is that their design and function is pretty straight forward, but as a tool, they need to be designed to suit their task, and be durable, so they need to be well constructed.

Rakes are also like landscape sized `paint brushes'...
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(fond memeries of distant youth!) ... I remember years ago in a landscape maintenance job... I had to rake a long pebble driveway at a back-country estate once a week for some high society folk who came up infrequently.
I used a ` fan type' metal or bamboo leaf rake, and really enjoyed raking a rippled pattern in the gravel of this natural wooded driveway.
Because the driveway was rarely used, it was like a long -------O zen garden driveway!
As the seasons changed, different flowers, pine, maples, and oaks would shed their leaves, and I would rake bountiful bushels of these to put in different parts of their wildflower garden. I did this over a couple of years, and shovelled lots of snow off this driveway too, making fun`snow sculptures' out of it along the sides...
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Back to your question... fact is.. I've never made a bamboo rake!

Okay, now I'm going to have to make one! (sometime soon)
Here's some thoughts about it...
(I think you're refering to the rake type composed of pegs that are arranged across a stick, positioned at a right angle to the handle.?)

After deciding on the design and size of the rake, the next most important step is selecting the pieces.
(If one were to hold a group workshop on making a bamboo rake, and if all of the pieces had been pre-selected, it would hardly be a bamboo rake making workshop... more like - a how to drill holes and do joinery workshop.)

Each part of a rake is integral to the rake, all the parts have to fit, and stay together, and work in unison.
As I mentioned, a rake is like a landscape artists' brush, that when drawn across the gravel, imparts a pattern on the surface.
And like brushes and tools, everybody has their own preferences.

The rake handle needs to be a length, diameter, stiffness or flexibility to suit the rake and the person using it.
(There are probably standardized measurements for handles in this industry)

Rakes tines are like widely spaced bristtles in a brush.
Rake tines function as the rake tool tip, and their ease of use is affected by the length, size, angle, spacing and flexibility, and their attachment to the cross bar and handle length.

Rake tines are usually all equal length and width, and they are usually equally spaced.
(...though anybody can make their tine spacings any width they like!)

The cross-bar for pegging the tines to should be a strong, stout piece of bamboo, a piece that is thicker-walled.

Wrap masking tape around the part where the holes are to be drilled to prevent splitting or fraying the edge of the hole..

The uniqueness of each piece of bamboo affords us an opportunity to impart this trait into the design, by selecting and prearranging the materials before-hand.
Where a standardized/repeat measurement is required (as per length, width, specific hole size), a prototype model and a width gauge is very handy for finding the pieces you need in a stack of bamboo.

Whew! I didn't realize there was so much to write about bamboo rakes!

...and there's still the subject of joinery techniques etc etc.

Mark