Bobcat Landscape Rake 5B vs. 6B: Sizing the Right Grading Attachment for Your Crew

A landscape rake is one of the cheapest skid steer attachments you can finance, and one of the easiest to underestimate. It doesn't dig, doesn't grapple, doesn't shear anything -- it just rakes, levels, and collects, which sounds almost too simple to matter. But for grading subs, land development crews, and site-work contractors prepping ground for sod, seed, or hardscape, a landscape rake is frequently the attachment standing between a rough, bumpy final grade and a finish the customer actually signs off on without a punch list.

What a Landscape Rake Actually Does

A landscape rake, sometimes called a box rake or (when running a reversible drum version) a Harley rake, uses rake bars connected to a chain and driven by a hydraulic motor to pull debris -- rocks, roots, construction trash -- up and into a collection bucket while simultaneously leveling the soil surface beneath it. Adjustable side skis control working depth, leaving a shallow, consistent scrape rather than gouging the surface. When the bucket fills, a hydraulic cylinder opens a top cover for dumping, and the same cutting edge that collects debris can also push and scrape material across the grade. Bobcat's own spec sheet rates the attachment as capable of picking up most rocks a half-inch and smaller -- useful context for setting expectations on what a single pass can actually clear versus what still needs a hand-pick before seeding.

The Real Spec Difference Between Bobcat's Two Sizes

Bobcat currently offers the landscape rake in two working widths -- the 5B at 60 in and the 6B at 72 in -- and the spec sheet makes clear that the size step isn't just about covering more ground per pass. The 5B carries 384 teeth across 12 tooth bars, a 12.1 cubic ft bucket capacity, and an operating weight of 1,109 lb. The 6B steps up to 456 teeth on the same 12 tooth bars, a 14.3 cubic ft bucket, and 1,237 lb operating weight. Both share an identical 63.3 in length and 40.4 in height -- the difference is purely in working width and the proportionally larger bucket and tooth count that go with it. Both mount via Bobcat's Bob-Tach system, and both are rated for Bobcat's skid-steer, compact track loader, small articulated loader, telehandler, and Toolcat platforms, so the sizing decision rarely runs into a compatibility wall -- it's almost entirely a question of how much grading width your typical job calls for.

Sizing It to Your Actual Jobs

• A grading sub working residential lots, small commercial pads, and sod-prep jobs in tight, obstacle-filled yards often does fine with the 5B's 60 in width -- the smaller footprint maneuvers more easily around existing landscaping, utilities, and structures

• A site-work contractor grading larger subdivision lots, commercial pad sites, or sports-field subgrade benefits from the 6B's extra 12 inches of width and larger bucket -- fewer passes to clear a given area adds up across a multi-lot job

• Operating weight differences (1,109 lb vs. 1,237 lb) matter more on a smaller skid steer near its rated operating capacity once you factor in the loader's own counterweight requirements -- worth checking against your specific loader's attachment capacity rather than assuming either size fits every machine in a mixed fleet

• Since both sizes mount on the same Bob-Tach interface and the same compatible-machine list, a contractor who outgrows the 5B can typically move up to the 6B without needing a different base machine

The Features That Actually Hold Up Over Time

Beyond the headline width and bucket numbers, a few design details on the Bobcat landscape rake matter more to how the attachment holds up over a real work schedule. The teeth themselves are hardened specifically to withstand the abrasive wear of repeated soil contact, and the rake bars they're mounted to are individually replaceable -- a meaningful detail on an attachment that spends its working life dragging through rocky or gritty soil, since it means a worn section can be swapped without replacing the entire bar assembly. The side skis that control working depth are adjustable rather than fixed, which lets an operator dial in a shallower pass for a delicate finish grade or a deeper pass for rougher ground without changing attachments. None of these details show up prominently in a spec sheet's top-line numbers, but they're exactly the kind of thing that determines whether an attachment is still earning its keep three or four seasons into ownership instead of needing early replacement.

The Bob-Tach mounting system is also worth noting on its own, separate from the SSQA standard discussion below -- it's designed specifically for fast attach and detach, which matters on a crew that's swapping between a bucket, a rake, and possibly a grapple or blade across a single day's work. An attachment that takes extra time to mount or dismount doesn't just cost that time once; it costs it every single swap, across every job, for the life of the machine.

Landscape Rake vs. Root Rake: Two Different Tools, Not Two Sizes of the Same One

It's worth being clear that a landscape rake is not a smaller version of a root rake, even though both get called "rakes" and both end up windrowing debris. BFC's root rake attachment guide covers the land-clearing tool built for tearing through brush, small trees, and heavy root mass -- a fundamentally different job than finish-grading soil ahead of sod or seed. A landscape rake has no clamping or clearing capability at all; it's a finishing tool, not a clearing one. Confusing the two when budgeting an attachment purchase is an easy mistake to make from the name alone, and it's worth double-checking which job you actually need solved before financing either one.

Where This Attachment Actually Earns Its Keep

The clearest return on a landscape rake shows up in the trades that bill by the finished square foot rather than by the hour -- sod installers, final-grade subs on new-construction lots, and hardscape crews prepping a base before pavers or turf go down. For those businesses, the rake isn't a nice-to-have, it's the step that determines whether the finished product passes inspection or a walkthrough on the first try. A rougher finish grade done by hand-raking or by skipping the attachment step entirely costs real labor hours that a machine pass replaces in a fraction of the time, and it's the kind of production gain that's easy to see on a job-by-job basis even without needing to quote a specific dollar figure. Golf course maintenance crews, athletic field builders, and erosion-control contractors prepping seedbeds on slopes are other trades where this exact attachment shows up constantly, for the same reason -- a consistent, shallow finish grade is the whole point of the job, not an afterthought.

Financing a Low-Cost Attachment: Does It Even Make Sense?

A landscape rake sits at the low end of the attachment cost spectrum compared to a grapple, mulcher, or hydraulic breaker, which raises a fair question: is it even worth financing something this inexpensive rather than just paying cash? The honest answer depends on timing more than price. If you're financing the skid steer or track loader itself and the rake is going in the same deal, rolling it into the same loan is usually the simplest path and avoids a separate transaction for a comparatively small amount. If you already own the base machine and are adding the rake later, paying cash outright is often the more sensible move for an attachment at this price point -- financing makes more sense as volume climbs, which is exactly why bundling it with a larger purchase, rather than financing it alone, tends to be the more common pattern among BFC's grading and site-work customers.

There's also a fleet-level version of this question worth asking if you're running more than one loader: does every machine need its own rake, or does one rake get shared and moved between units as jobs require it? For a contractor with loaders spread across multiple active jobsites on a given day, having a dedicated rake per machine avoids the downtime and logistics of hauling one attachment back and forth, and at this attachment's price point, duplicating it across a fleet is a much smaller capital commitment than duplicating a grapple or breaker would be.

How This Fits Your Broader Attachment Strategy

A landscape rake is one piece of a much larger attachment-compatibility and cost-of-ownership picture. BFC's skid steer attachment compatibility breakdown covers how Bob-Tach, Pin Grabber, Quick-Tatch, and the broader SSQA standard interact across brands, and our look at what a skid steer attachment actually costs to own covers the broader rent-vs-own math that applies to a landscape rake just as much as to pricier attachments.

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