The use of a rake to grade a surface is well known within the construction and other labor industries and has been practiced for many years. Laborers of all description employ a grading rake to spread some kind of material evenly over a surface. Grading rakes provide an easy and quick means of spreading material, such as a substrate.
Typically, a grading rake user pushes and pulls the rake head over a substrate, using a handle that is attached to the rake, to manipulate the substrate. There are many reasons to manipulate the substrate, for example a user may wish to level the substrate to a desired level. The leveling of a substrate can be important for structural and aesthetic reasons.
Although grading rakes allow a user to manipulate substrate, there remain issues. Presently, a grading rake user hoping to level a substrate must rely on their judgment to ensure the accuracy of the level. There are other means of checking substrate level, but these means are often complex and costly, and can take a lot of time to implement.
A grading rake user can manipulate substrate on a primary surface; however this manipulation is without reference to a secondary surface. This prevents a grading rake user from manipulating substrate as may be required along secondary surfaces of different material, height and other characteristics.
Grading rakes are fixed tools incapable of user manipulation. Often several different rakes may be required for different grading situations, or substrate manipulation. It is expensive and cumbersome to purchase and transport multiple grading rakes to job sites.
There have been grading rakes disclosed in the past as described in the US patents with publication numbers U.S. Pat. No. 2,152,377-A, U.S. Pat. No. 3,678,670-A, U.S. Pat. No. 4,219,994-A and U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,553. Although these grading rakes provide some type a guiding feature to affect substrate raking, the guiding capabilities are limited.
Therefore there is a need for an adjustable guided rake apparatus that is not subject to one or more limitations of the prior art.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.