The annual collection of forest and wild berries is a special craft that has kept its traditions from ancient times. Oddly enough, little has changed in this industry. Berries still have to be picked manually. The difficulty lies in the fact that these healing gifts of nature, rich in vitamins and minerals, have one not too pleasant feature. They are very small, and sometimes they grow in such places that getting them can be difficult. To make life as easy as possible, people have long used a combine to harvest cranberries. This simple device greatly facilitates the collection process and baskets fill up much faster.
Berry harvester
Modern industry offers a huge selection of such devices. A cranberry harvester looks most often as a small bucket, the lower part of which is a comb. The distance between its cloves is slightly narrower than the diameter of the middle berry. The principle of operation is extremely simple: you need to comb the bushes as if from the bottom up. Twigs and leaves will slip between the teeth, and the berries, breaking away from the bush, will slide into a bucket.
If you adapt a little, then in a couple of hours of work you can collect a whole bucket of berries. In some regions, this method of collecting cranberries and lingonberries is considered barbaric and even prohibited by law. The fact is that the teeth of the comb can damage delicate twigs and leaves. Next year, the yield 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 options for such "robbery":
The latter are mainly industrial production. But the first two options can be made by yourself.
How to make a "robbery" yourself
Making a cranberry harvester with your own hands is not so difficult. No special skills are needed for this. If you have not missed labor lessons in high school and have at least a minimum skill in working with tools, you will surely succeed. For homemade it is better to use metal or wood. Plastic will take a very long time to mess around. And the strength of such a product, made at home, leaves much to be desired.
Materials and tools
So, how to make a cranberry harvester? For work you will need such tools and materials:
- a piece of tin or sheet steel;
- metal wire (stiff);
- a piece of wood for making a pen;
- drill;
- fasteners;
- glue;
- scissors for metal;
- jigsaw or small hacksaw.
This list is quite general. Everything will depend on which particular harvester for picking berries (cranberries in this case) you want to make.
Tin bucket: construction
If you settled on a version made of metal, then for work it is best to prepare a piece of galvanized steel or sheet aluminum. These materials are fairly easy to process, they are not too susceptible to corrosion.
You can find many examples of what a cranberry harvester looks like. Photos from this article may also be useful. For example, you can use the template below.
The whole structure consists of a handle and a collection bucket. The bucket, in turn, consists of four more elements:
- case (scan below);
- stiffener;
- comb;
- mounting block.
Manufacturing technique
Carefully observing all dimensions, transfer the image to a galvanized sheet.
Using scissors for metal, cut out all the necessary details: the body and stiffener of the combine. Bend everything as shown.
Now you need to make the comb itself. To do this, take steel wire Ø 2-3 mm and cut it into pieces of approximately 20 cm. Bend each piece of wire in half.
To make a fastener, take a wooden block of the required size and drill “blind” holes with a depth of 15–20 mm in its end part.
Now you need to make a pen. To do this, you will need a piece of thin metal-plastic pipe and a wooden block, the same as for the manufacture of a fastener.
We proceed to the assembly of the entire structure. It is not difficult to do this, you just have to adapt:
- The ends of the wire elements are threaded through the stiffener and inserted into adjacent holes of the mounting plate. In order to prevent the teeth from falling out, the ends of the wire must be lubricated with good glue.
- The resulting "rake" is connected to the handle bar using conventional screws.
- From above we cover the resulting structure with the body and fasten everything with small studs or the same screws. The housing must be simultaneously attached to both the bar and the bar.
- Using steel rivets or small bolts we fasten the body and the stiffener.
- Using pliers, we bend the end elements of the housing around the extreme teeth of the comb. The product is ready.
Wooden bucket
If you can’t work with metal, you can make a harvester for collecting cranberries with your own hands and from wood. For this, suitable, for example, ordinary plywood or thin dies with a thickness of not more than 10 mm. No special drawings are needed here. You can simply draw all the elements on a piece of paper and transfer it to the selected material.
The teeth of the comb are best sawed with a circular tool. But if you don’t have it or if you don’t know how to handle it, you can use the usual jigsaw. Just need to be very careful so as not to damage the previously sawn cloves.
The design is assembled with glue, usual high-quality PVA is suitable. For fidelity, you can walk along the perimeter with small cloves or self-tapping screws. Just do not need to drill too much, you can damage the thin walls of the structure and you have to start all over again.
Of course, if you masterfully know how to handle tools for woodcarving, then making such a "robbery" will not be difficult for you. But what about those who hold the hacksaw badly in their hands?
Another option for the harvester
The most primitive cranberry harvester can be made from virtually nothing. You will need wooden skewers for barbecue and two sawn thick branches. The thickness of the round beads should be about 1 cm, and the diameter should be about 10-12 cm.
In addition, for work you will need:
- drill;
- thin drill (Ø like a skewer);
- chisel;
- emery cloth;
- glue.
You can start manufacturing. With the help of a chisel, one of the round ones needs to be made a ring. To do this, remove the entire middle, leaving the sides 1–1.5 cm thick. Using a skin, we clean both parts of small burrs.
Now we take a drill and along the edge of both parts we drill symmetrical holes at a distance of 5-6 mm from each other.
We put the skewers through both holes and pull the parts from each other to 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 off the sharp ends of the skewers so as not to damage the berries. You can go on a berry "hunt."
How to use the combine
Even if the use of such devices for collecting wild berries in your area is not prohibited, use it with extreme caution. It’s important not only to collect the largest possible yield, but also not to harm the plant. In no case should you pull the “robbery” if it is hooked on leaves or branches. Wild berries do not hold too tight in the ground and pulling with special zeal, you can simply pull them out with the root.
It is not worth starting the collection until the berries have fully ripened. Of course, they can ripen outside the bush, but in this case they will quickly deteriorate and may acquire a bitter taste. In addition, the unripe berry comes off harder and again you risk damaging the plant.
If there are a lot of leaves and twigs in the "robbery", do not rush to get rid of them. Brewing them with tea (or separately), you get a wonderful drink full of vitamins and minerals.