How to make a harvester for harvesting cranberries by hand?

The annual collection of forest and wild berries is a special craft that has kept its traditions from ancient times. Strangely enough, but little has changed in this industry. The berries still have to be collected manually. The difficulty lies in the fact that these healing gifts of nature, rich in vitamins and trace elements, have one not very pleasant feature. They are very small, and sometimes they grow in places where it is not easy to get them. To make life as simple as possible, people have long used a harvester to collect cranberries. This simple device greatly facilitates the collection process and the bowls fill much faster.

Harvester for harvesting berries

Modern industry offers a huge selection of such devices. It looks like a harvester for collecting cranberries more often than a small scoop, the lower part of which is a comb. The distance between her teeth is slightly narrower than the diameter of the middle berries. The principle of operation is extremely simple: you need to comb the bushes from the bottom up. The branches and leaves will slip between the teeth, and the berries, tearing themselves away from the bush, will roll into the ladle.

If you adjust a little, then for a couple of hours of work you can collect a whole bucket of berries. In some regions, this way of collecting cranberries and cowberries is considered barbarous and even prohibited by law. The fact is that the teeth of the comb can damage the tender twigs and leaves. Next year, the harvest of berries in this place will be much smaller, because the plant will have to restore strength. Therefore, using a harvester to collect cranberries, it is important not to rush and act very carefully, so as not to damage the plant.

There are several variants of such "robbers":

• Metal;
• Wooden;
• Plastic.

The latter are mainly industrial production. But the first two options can be made yourself.

How to make a "grabber" yourself

To make a harvester for harvesting cranberries by your own hands is not so difficult. Special skills for this will not be needed. If you have not missed the lessons of work in high school and have at least a minimal skill in working with tools, you will definitely succeed. It is better to use metal or wood for a homemade article. With plastic will have a very long time to tinker. Yes, and the strength of such a product made at home, leaves much to be desired.

Materials and Tools

So, how to make a harvester for collecting cranberries? For work you will need such tools and materials:

• Piece of sheet metal or sheet steel;
• Metal wire (rigid);
• A piece of wood for making a handle;
• drill;
• Fasteners;
• glue;
• Scissors for metal;
• Jigsaw or small hacksaw.

This list is quite general. Everything will depend on what kind of harvester to collect berries (cranberries in this case) you want to make.

Tinplate: construction

If you are staying on a metal version, then it's best to work with a piece of galvanized or sheet aluminum. These materials are fairly easy to process, they are not too prone to corrosion.

You can find many examples of what a harvester looks like to collect cranberries. Photos from this article can also be useful. For example, you can use the template below.

The whole construction consists of a handle and a bucket for collection. The bucket, in turn, consists of four more elements:

• Body (sweep below);
• Stiffener;
• comb;
• Fixing bar.

Manufacturing techniques

Carefully, observing all dimensions, transfer the image to the galvanized sheet.

Using scissors for metal, cut out all the necessary details: the body and the stiffener edge of the combine. Flex all as shown.

Now we need to make the comb itself. To do this, take a steel wire Ø 2-3 mm and cut it into pieces of approximately 20 cm. Each piece of wire bend in half.

To manufacture the fastening element, take a wooden block of the necessary dimensions and in the end part of it, drill the "blind" holes with a depth of 15-20 mm.

Now you need to make a pen. To do this, you will need a piece of thin metal-plastic pipe and a wooden bar, the same as for the manufacture of the fastening element.

We now proceed to assemble the whole structure. It is not difficult to do this, it is only necessary to adapt yourself:

• The ends of the wire elements are passed through the stiffener and inserted into the adjacent holes of the fastening strip. To ensure that the teeth do not fall out, the ends of the wire must be greased with a good glue.
• The resultant "rake" is connected with the handle bar using conventional screws.
• On top of the resulting design, cover the body and fasten everything with small studs or the same screws. The body needs to be attached both to the bar and to the bar at the same time.
• Using steel rivets or small bolts, we fix the body and the stiffener.
• With the help of pliers bend the end elements of the body around the extreme teeth of the comb. The product is ready.

Wooden ladle

If you can not work with metal, you can make a harvester to collect cranberries with your own hands and wood. For this purpose, for example, the usual plywood or thin plachechki thickness of not more than 10 mm. There are no special drawings here. You can simply draw all the elements on a piece of paper and transfer them to the selected material.

Comb teeth are best cut with circular knives. But if you do not have it or you do not know how to handle it, you can use the usual jig saw. Only you need to be very careful not to damage previously cut out denticles.

The construction is assembled with glue, a conventional high-quality PVA is suitable. To be faithful, you can walk around the perimeter of small carnations or samorezami. Just do not need to drill too much, you can damage the thin walls of the structure and have to start all over again.

Of course, if you masterfully master the tools for woodcarving, then making such a "grinder" is not difficult for you. And what about those who do not hold a hacksaw in their hands?

Another variant of the combine

The most primitive combine for harvesting cranberries can be made from almost nothing. You will need wooden skewers for shish kebabs and two cut off a thick branch. The thickness of the round should be about 1 cm, and the diameter - about 10-12 cm.

In addition, you will need:

• drill;
• Thin drill (Ø as with a skewer);
• chisel;
• Emery cloth;
• glue.

You can start making. Using a chisel from one of the crooks, you need to make a ring. To do this, remove the entire middle, leaving the edges of 1-1.5 cm thick. Using the skins, we clean both parts from small burrs.

Now take the drill and drill symmetrical holes along the edge of both parts at a distance of 5-6 mm from each other.

Push the skewers through both holes and pull the parts away from each other for a distance of about 12-15 cm. We fix the structure with glue.

You should get a kind of glass with lattice walls. Now you need to cut the sharp ends of the skewers so as not to damage the berries. You can go to the berry "hunt".

How to properly use the combine

Even if the use of such devices to collect wild berries in your region and is not prohibited, it should be used with extreme caution. It is important not only to harvest as much as possible, but also not to damage the plant. In no case can you pull the "grabber" if it is caught on leaves or branches. Wild berries are not very strong in the ground and pulling with a special zeal, you can just pull them out with the root.

Do not start collecting until the full ripening of berries. They, of course, can ripen outside the bush, but in this case they will quickly deteriorate and may acquire a bitter taste. In addition, the unripe berries come off harder and you again risk damaging the plant.

If a lot of leaflets and twigs accumulated in the "grabber", do not rush to get rid of them. Brewing them together with tea (or separately), you will get a wonderful drink full of vitamins and trace elements.