I decided to build my own grub rake to bolt on in place of my bolt on Tooth Bar for removing small roots and vegitation and ground prep for planting. So far I have been using my WR Long Tooth Bar and backhoe to clear 3 acres of Poplar, Alder and scrub brush. I push the smaller stuff over with the FEL and rip out roots. The Backhoe handles the larger stuff but I find that the tooth bar leaves some of the roots behind and some of the scrub still standing. A number of people have suggested the the Ratched Rake is good for this type of work. Well after figuring the cost of the Ratchet Rake plus shipping to Canada I could cover the cost of a cheeper Plasma Cutter. I settled on a Stahlwerk Cut 50 for $399 on EBay.ca which is a German product and will readily handle 12MM (almost 1/2 inch 12.7mm steel which judjing from the performance on 3/16 I think it may cut 1/2 inch in a pinch). The local steel warehouse had a piece of 4" x 6" 3/16 angle iron which I was able to get at a good price so into the unknown. The cutter was a breeze to use because the tips are a drag type so for an unsteady old guy like me, I did not have to try and maintain an 1/8 to 1/16 gap. It uses cheap consumables from China and I purchased 20 sets of 50 Amp consumables for about $20 and only used 2 to cut the whole thing out. For my expected uses that is fine. Here are a few pics of the result. I am also new to welding so my welds are not pretty but I got good penetration using 7014 on my Lincoln AC225 stick welder that was given to me by my father in law. Maybe this will be helpful to someone else.
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