Last fall I purchased a 42' tine dethatcher (precise fit). While assembling the unit one evening,I couldn't help but notice the strong similarities between it and my 40' spike aerator from agri-fab: The trailing wheels mechanism and the hitch are nearly identical,even the weight tray is very similar.

Once the unit was fully assembled, it had by then gotten a bit too dark outside to go for a trial run and so....not wanting to give my neighbours any extra gossip material, I decided to wait for the next day to try out my new thatcher.

Since I had other projects to tackle in the garage that evening, I pushed my new thatcher out of the way to one corner of the garage.....directly in front of my aerator.

And that's when it happened: the "Tim the toolman taylor" (T.V.'s home improvement)syndrome kicked in:

I stood there looking at both units lined up in front of the other and thought: hey....I should hook both of these together!!

I know.......I know.....I know...not very sientific now is it? I mean the simple fact that the two units have a few similarities between them is by far no reason to try to run them together!! But still the idea stuck in my mind.

The next day (in broad daylight!!) I gave my new thatcher it's first run. I started with no weight at all in the tray and I was surprised to see how good it worked. As a matter of fact,I think that if I would have put 2 concrete blocks as shown on the MFG's box I would have just riped my lawn out.

Once I saw that the thatcher worked fine with no weight on I decided to give my crazy idea of running both units in tandem a try.

Because the aerator always has weight on it it was obvious that it would be the lead unit. I figured that all I would have to do is built an extra hitch to mount behind the aerator to hook up the thatcher.


I purchased some steel flat bar identical to the aerator's hitch. I then drilled holes to match the mounting bolts that hold the aerators hitch to the weight tray.By securing the extra hitch to the aerator with bolts only I could take every thing off and leave the aerator intact.

I then simply bent the flatbar so it comes together at the other end,and then just welded a piece of flat steel plate with a hole in it so the thatchers pin could be hooked up.

Amazingly the whole unit actually tracks behind my tractor pretty well. I do have to turn around the corners a bit wider but not by much. The big drawback is of course that backing up is totally out of the question! You have to plan ahead with this set-up.

I do know that I can get in trouble with the "lawn police" as this combination violates the proper order of lawn care: 1- mow

2- thatch

3- sweep

4- aerate

5- fertilize

Oh well,the way I see it,you gota have a little fun sometimes.....besides....SOMEBODY has got to keep the neighbours entertained!

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