Agri-Fab Inc 45-0521 Lawn Sweeper, Orange and Black

OK, this is going to be pretty glowing, but no, I don't work for these people and in fact had never heard of Agri-Fab before finding this. Are there any negs? Yeah, go to the bottom.I've seen reviews that say the instructions were horrible. There were no words, so for you folks who are not strongly visual, it was probably maddening. Anyway, they heard you, because there is a second set of instructions included that actually has descriptions. This made assembly go very smoothly. n.b.: pay attention to EXACTLY which way to orient each bolt, cotter pin and tube. Get it wrong, you'll do it over (I did have one re-do). No big deal, just pay attention. They drew it the way they meant it.It is actually really well designed, and goes together with no confusion. Someone really thought this thing out. You do a few bolts, but a lot goes together with pins, and it is very solid.How well did it work? To be clear, I didn't buy this for leaves or lawn clippings, I got it to collect horse manure from dirt and gravel paths and paddocks. Tired of using the "apple picker." Someone on the net mentioned using a sweeper for manure and I thought what the heck, let's try. And yes, it works amazingly well. It isn't perfect, but it is better than I do by hand, so that's a massive win. It doesn't get right up against fences, so I do a little prep work of quickly raking notable piles away from the fence, but otherwise it's really good. It does raise a lot of dust when going over dirt (imagine standing in dusty dirt and sweeping furiously fast). Manure weighs more than leaves, so to dump it I get off the tractor and actually lift the bag by hand. I think it would bend the tube to use the rope. Wet leaves might have a similar issue. Also due to the added weight and my dirt and gravel, I'm probably going to wear through the bag eventually. I'm looking around for some form of plastic sheet I might be able to use to protect the bag, we'll see, but for lawns it should be fine.Bad parts? It was packed with minimal padding and just stuffed in the box. One piece of the metal got dented which was pretty good given how the not-very-stiff box looked when it got here.Also, given how well everything else is engineered, the hitch is a bit of a kludge. You do the coarse height hitch adjustment by the way you assemble it, and then there are these fidgety spacers that do the fine adjusting. Once I lose them, and I'm sure it won't take long, I'll figure out some other spacer that maybe I can just zip-tie into place. I don't think the hitch height is so critical that any of that is needed (there is a separate brush height adjustment). Minor annoyance, maybe the junior engineer was given the hitch problem.But overall it seems sturdy and up to being dragged around our dirty, gravely, rock-strewn terrain and it is saving me tons of time. I was very impressed at how well they engineered both the assembly and the operation.

Does an excellent job sweeping grass, leaves and small sticks. When a weld failed in the main metal body I contacted Agr-Fab and they sent a replacement metal body no charge/noi shipping/no return/no questions. This required removing the wheel and sweeper assemblies and reinstalling them in the replacement metal body with no extra instructions except what came with the original machine. This was still easier than sending the old machine back for a new one.since I had destroyed the box it came in.

The product arrived damaged. A packaging issue. I used it three times and an important weld broke. This rendered the unit useless. I called Agri-fab. No part available because this bar is welded to the unit. I drilled a 5/16th hole and attached the bar to the unit with a Stainless steel bolt. I also bolted the side where the weld held, for now. I sent Agri-Fab before and after photos. They sent me a check for $25.00. I saved them well over $100.00 in return shipped and replacement shipping. The unit is effective. I like the way it works. Agri-Fab should go back to bolting the bar that keeps the catcher in place.

Product arrived on schedule with no packaging issues. Assembly was quick without issues. I use this regularly, weekly during November - end of February, and I've had no significant issues. Does a great job of picking up Live Oak leaves. Spanish moss creates some minor issues as it wraps around the brushes, just means you have to clean it out, or pick it up first. Easy to use and tipping/dumping is easy enough. Should last a long time.

In the sense of how this functions, it actually does a pretty decent job of cleaning leaves. But you have to play with the adjustments, in order for it to do a decent job. That being said, this is very poorly made, plain and simple.. It's well engineered, but built cheap. Now, I'm a career maintenance man, spent most of my life fixing things, so I know what I'm talking about. This broke down after only a few hours of use. I actually had to rebuild both wheel assemblies, in order to use it a second time. You can see in the pic, that the left wheel is actually crooked, and this is how it was delivered. As it is, it works good as long as you baby it, but the way the wheel mechanism's work, it's only a matter of time before they break. If the wheel assemblies weren't so poorly built, I probably would have given this five stars, seriously!Putting the leaf catcher together was a bit of a challenge, so hanging it up from the ceiling made this part, of the assembly, a lot easier. Now . . . in closing, I have to say, in it's defense, what would have taking me several days of raking, only took several hours.

I like this product and how useful it is around my yard but the shipping is terrible.

Very happy with this product -- lawn sweeper -- which does a super job in picking up leaves. It's more difficult than it should be to dump the leaves, but given sufficient strength, the rope does the trick. The hairpins for the clevis bolts are a problem, and keep falling off and getting lost in the yard. Other than the annoyance with the hairpins, it's a nice piece of gear and very welcome on my three acres with dozens of trees. PS: when calling for replacement hairpins and clevis bolts, the company was wonderful to deal with.

Assembly was simple and instructions were accurate. Sweeper adjustment is easy for different turf heights. Hopper material seems flimsy but has performed well so far. Picks up ine cones, needles, leaves and twigs with first pass.