If you been with me through my previous two reviews, you know my husband and I have been working on sprucing up our lawn. Once we got rid of the weeds we were ready to fertilize and over seed our lawn, or so we thought. But having been up close and personal with our lawn for a couple of weeks I knew we were going to have problems because of the thatch. So I went out and bought us a couple of Ames Thatch Rakes.

What Is Thatch?
Thatch is the accumulation of grass clippings and other dead matter that forms a layer between your lawn’s soil and the rest of the world. If the layer is thick enough it impedes the flow of water, air and fertilizer to the grass roots. Now some thatch is good. It helps keep the ground cool and it reduced the evaporation of water from the soil. But if the thatch layer gets more than ¼ - ½" thick it can start to be a problem to your lawn and needs to be removed.

There are two options, rent (or hire) and dethatching machine or do it by hand. We had no luck with two different automatic dethatching machines from a local rental company so we went to the hand ranking method.

What Is So Special About This Rake?
The Ames Thatch Rake has sharp knife like tines on both sides of the head. The tops of the tines are curved, so if you set the rake down on its head it can rock like a cradle. The opposite side of the tines is almost straight across, but does have a slight curve to it. If you look at the profile of the rake each tine looks like a jack-o-lantern smile. Each tine extends 2" out from the center of the rake.

So why is it a double sided head? The difference is in the curved side of the tines. One set is straight, and the other set has a slight flare to it. When looking down on the head of the rake the tines on the flared side jut out about 1/8" for about 1" along the length of the tines. The regular tines are designed for raking and the flared sided can be used fro removing moss from your lawn or for scratching up the soil for reseeding.

The rake head is attached to the rake by one wing nut on each side of the head. The bolts on the head fit into a slot on the attaching piece. This allows you to easily adjust the head to any angle that is comfortable for you, but the idea is to get the tines perpendicular to the lawn.

Once the head is adjusted properly you pull it through the lawn dislodging lots of dead debris from your lawn. Push back on the rake and the self cleaning head deposits the pile of thatch on top of your lawn.

Our Experience
Without a doubt these rakes worked for us. It took a long time and a lot of effort to dethatch our entire yard. We have half and acre of land, which includes the house, driveway, walkways and porches, and it took the two of us 4 full 8 hour days to get up most of the thatch that had accumulated in the past 4 year. This is a labor intensive, back breaking project and there are still areas that we missed. We had to go over most areas more than once to get the majority of the thatch up.

The rakes are fairly easy to use, much like a vacuum cleaner with the pull and push motion. The wooden handles are clear coated and do not have any sort of plastic cover so the handle can be a little slippery in your hands.

We did not notice any real difference in the two different styles of tines the rake. I adjusted the rake so that the flared side was vertical and raked. Then I adjusted the head to use the plain side and there was no difference in the amount of thatch that the head removed in each pass.
One problem we encountered with both rakes is that the end times started to bend in towards the middle. Since all of the pulling force is applied from the central handle the aluminum tines respond to that force and bend toward it. For the first day I would hand bend back the misaligned tines, but after doing that about 10 times I was afraid that I was going to weaken the tines and they would break off, so after that I just left the end tines bent. By the end of the project the outmost tines on both rakes had bent in to touch the adjacent tine. Normally the tines are spaced about ¾" apart.

Once all the thatch was raked out we still needed to pick it up. I still can’t believe the amount of thatch that is now in our compost pile. Disposal is something to think about, as some communities do not allow you to throw away lawn materials with the regular trash collection.

Final Thoughts
Despite the hard work, it was worth it. We did try some dethatching with our leaf rake as well as our regular rake but this is a case where you really need a specific tool for the job. For about 2-3 days after dethatching each area the lawn did not look too healthy. But some water, a little fertilizer and a few days “rest” and our lawn looks better than ever.

We have also discovered a secondary use for our Ames Thatch Rake. Areas where we have sprayed weed killer, the rake is handy and efficient at removing the dead weeds. It is much easier than getting on my hands and knees to pull them out. Additionally the rake loosens up the soil where the weed was, making the ground ready for grass seed.

My Other Review on Lawn Revitalization
Part 1: Hound Dog Weed Hound
Part 2: Ortho Weed-B-Gon



Recommended: Yes