ROOT ASSASSIN RAKE

51yo female here to give a personal review. I searched for a rake to pick up acorns and found that this is great for other jobs, too. If you’re going to de-thatch your lawn, this is a MUST HAVE. So lightweight and with a big scoop area, I cleaned up the thatch piles quickly. I flipped it over (like you’d flip your dinner fork to hold your steak while cutting) to scrape and loosen leaves and old stems under the Burberry bushes, then flipped it back over to scoop them out. Never had to touch the prickers! Not sure it’ll be strong enough to scoop mulch, haven’t tried that yet. The tines are plastic so the mulch will need to be loose, not packed down. Another reviewer said it worked well with mulch. Yes, it’s great to scoop loose acorns. Oh, and that sassy red handle! Love it!

Just like the title says, this is the best break I've ever had. It's lightweight like some other rakes I've had but when I get done raking something into a pile I can pitch it onto the wagon or into the wheel barrow. You can't do that with any of the other rakes. It was very easy to assemble took me maybe 5 minutes including cutting it out of the box. Probably going to give a few of these as gifts this year. The only thing I can see that might make it easier to assemble for some people without the dexterity, would be a wing nut on the back in lieu of the small locking nut. This would make it even faster to assemble and even easier to torque. Also, it would cut down on the number of assembly tools to just a flathead or a Phillips head screwdriver. If you need a rake get this one. It's fantastic

It gets 4 stars as I use this around my yard and in my garden (after a fresh till). The reality is that the tines are flimsy and will not function well in harder more compacted soils. I'm not clear on why this is named the way it is as any root will destroy this rake. If you have loose soil and need to sift out debris or rock, this is good for that.

Well made, very light! would like to love it. We are unhappy with the rake BUT that is our fault, we didn't buy it for a rake, we hoped it would work better than a normal horse stall fork/picker. It does not! Some reviews say it does, it does not. It is way too small. It actually does work really well, but it is so small it would take all day to do one stall. As a rake it has worked really well. In videos they are cleaning up horse manure outside and I am sure it does work really well for that, but for stalls it is too small.

My first experience with this tool was a model called “Golden Gark”. From first use, it becomes a must-have - it fits the sweet spot between traditional rakes (too small) and leaf rakes (too flexible) - and the shovel feature make it easy to scoop up what you've just gathered - without swapping tools. The "D" handle is better than a rounded handle for shoveling leaves. The design flaw is in the attachment of the scoop to the shaft - the screw hole in the shaft is not reinforced, and after even an hour of use, the screws attaching the scoop get loose and fall out. To fix it, the manufacturer should simply add reinforcing material around the screw hole in the shaft, so that it doesn't soften and wear out. For a product that's otherwise excellent (and pretty expensive), this feels like a simple fix. Amazon no longer sells the Golden Gark, and redirects to the Rake Assassin, which looks very similar, but is not durable. Save your money, and search for the Golden Gark... it’s still being sold, just not by Amazon.

Super easy to use

I actually like raking, so you can stop reading this now and move on to the next worthy review if you cannot fathom that being true. I have had experience with multiple rakes over the last 20 years of raking over 100,000 leaves a year here in the northeast. I was excited to try out this one out mostly because I have been sold on how much a difference a feather weight rake like my favorite, the Fiskars Leaf Rake, has been in making the chore not only easier but more aerobic as you can rake for longer durations before taking a muscle break. Leave blowers seem like the logical practice for those dealing with large acreage lots, but I’m sticking green even though neighbors left and right of me are waking the neighborhood up with decibels of blow beasts reshaping their yards. The Rake Assassin promised low weight with it’s aluminum shaft and plastic raker but also the benefit of being able to forgo the labor-intensive bending needed to pick up, lift and load a garbage can with its shovel like design. This function ended up being its best feature after using it for a couple of days of testing out, but it unfortunately compromises the main functionality of raking itself. The rake head design is not wide enough to be efficient in gathering leaves and the stiff plastic used to strengthen the shovel shape doesn’t allow for effective raking. As a result, you end up raking more for the shoveling benefit. And whereas the shoveling works fairly well, it requires using a garbage can with its wideset opening rather than the simpler option of just using bags. Furthermore, it doesn’t eliminate the bending time required to squash the leaves once in the can or bag as part of the usual packing process, so I find it actually more efficient to do the pickup and pack process as one motion with a convention rake. Delivery was great. Packaging was great. Assembly was pretty straight forward, although I added one layer of duct tape on the shaft after screwing on the rake head to eliminate a slight but annoying wobble and get a snugger fit. My Fiskars Leaf Rake remains the pro raker’s best choice in my opinion, but this Rake Assassin can have its purpose to those looking to rake mostly large sand and gravel areas. I actually used it to rake powdery snow off my gravel driveway with decent results. At the price I paid however, this is not a great value. It just made the premium price of the Fiskars Leaf Rake Fiskars Leaf Rake seem more like a bargain. Happy raking to all!

I love this rake!

I like this Rake, but it broke after 1 week of use. Make them shorter and stronger.

Its a nice tool to use and seems to be well made. However it is quite a bit narrower than many 'ordinary' plastic leaf rakes on the market. Had it been wider I would have given it 5 stars Edit : I have given it 5 stars now! The thing is it is just a handy width use as a fork for filling my compost tumblers etc with leaves and other garden 'waste'. I use a wide plastic leaf rake to gather leaves into a pile then use it together with The Gark as a sort of 'grab' to pick up the leaves to load them onto a barrow.

Federleicht und doch stabil harkt und schaufelt man mit ein und demselben Werkzeug - da macht das Laubrechen richtig Freude! Auch zur Schneebeseitigung soll das Ding gut sein, kann ich jedoch mangels weißen Niederschlags bisher noch nicht kommentieren.

benutze die Golden Gark schon mehrere Jahre, wir haben eine ca. 20 Meter hohe Kastanie im Garten, jeden Herbst fallen dort tonnen weise Kastanien und Blätter herunter, habe es erst mit normalen Laubrechen versucht, dann ein Laubgebläse/Sauger gekauft, alles nicht besonders praktisch gewesen, erst mit diesem Rechen ging es zügig voran und damit es demnächst noch schneller geht habe ich diese Jahr noch einen Zweiten gekauft damit die Zuschauer nicht immer dumm rumstehen müssen ;-)

Does the job! Good quality and make racking leaves etc light work