DIY Plywood Presser Pusher For Leaves

Autumn! Good time of the year for improved leaf tasking! My blog topic is a DIY plywood leaf pusher. It's related to my raking leaves blog articles and parody videos (widescreen, scrolling text). My leaf pusher at the time of the parodies was a Rubbermaid dustpan, still flexible, uncracked, and unbroken after years of leaf pile gathering and compressing. (For smallish piles, I still use the dustpan.)

My inspiration for my plywood presser pusher is "How To Rake (Bag) Leaves - the EASY WAY!", starting just before the 5-minute mark, where he shows his leaf presser. He used plywood, drilled holes, and attached cabinet handles. BTW, I advise skipping the part about drilling holes in trash receptacle and also using plastic bags. (Plastic is not acceptable for yard waste or compost pickups.)

The Home Depot door handle I used is no longer available. You can view similar door handles on the web. BTW, I think each handle with one hole at each end is adequate and more economical than two holes at each end. Another suggestion: Rather than using the wood screws that come in the package, use machine screws and nuts for securing the handles to the plywood. (I used 3/4" screws, washers, and hex nuts.) 

My info is advisory. You can decide to skip using a template or preplanning. After mulling a few template shapes (rectangular, circular, octagonal, stop sign), I made the 11" x 15" rectangular plywood presser pusher so that it'd fit in a lawn/leaf bag that measured 11 1/2" x 16" but also fit into a typical round, 32-gallon plastic trash can.

If you choose to make your own plywood presser pusher for leaves, be careful about safety WRT power tools, splinters, sawdust, rakes, and tripping. Watch the video before and during the project, pausing as sensible. Good luck! Let me know what you made and how it's working out for you!

Plywood Resources

I referred to my plywood as being 3/8" thick. I recall that wood dimensions tending to not be actual measured sizes. A resource with table info is "Actual Plywood Thickness and Size". The actual thickness is 11/32". Not easy to measure 1/32" difference.

Additional plywood resources:

• "Types of Plywood" (with embedded video link)
• "How To Choose the Right Plywood" (short and sweet)
• "MDF VS. PLYWOOD (Which Is Better?? Pros + Cons!!)" (detailed and longer than above link)
• "Plywood Weight Guide: How to Choose Right" (dry reading but lots of details)

Can't Rush Fall Leaves v3

Another version of "Can't Rush Fall Leaves"? Yes! The first version had a spoken intro, real-time and speeded-up clips, in some ways, conveying a hurry-up message. The second version excluded snow days and intro. This third version includes all seven days with various excises and accommodating speedups, but none at 4x.

1. V1 has speeded up clips for 1/10, 1/11, and 1/24.
2. V2 omits the intro, 1/10, and 1 /11 (snow days) clips.
3. Snow daze has only 1/10 and 1/11 real-time speed, no audio.
4. V3 omits the intro, real-time speed for 12/29, and 2x speed for the other 6 days. (Had further trimmed down 1/10, 1/11, and 1/24.)

Had I chosen to include all 7 days clips with real-time speed, the video would have been around 6 minutes, maybe not so good with a ~3 minute song. Repeating the song also hardly seemed sensible. Even with extra trimming and speedup for v3, I wound up with excess video. Briefly considered adding refrain, but decided against it.

I decided the snowdaze video could stand alone to acknowledge the unusual snow conditions in Central Texas on 1/10 and 1/11. While walking on the day of leftover snow, I spotted about 8 snowmen of various sizes and shapes. Natch, they weren't in first-day freshness condition. I bet lots of kids enjoyed building them, and parents enjoyed recording the moments.

The following table summarizes the similarities and differences, particularly clip durations for the dates.

 Original song info:

Song: You Can't Hurry Love
Artist: The Supremes (redo by Phil Collins)
Writers: Edward Holland, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland
Music: "You Can't Hurry Love - The Supremes | Karaoke Version | KaraFun", Feb 7, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnqE7FRxV-s

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Related, parody of Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do":
"Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (with scrolling lyrics)" (video, article)
"Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (widescreen)" (video, article)

Can't Rush Fall Leaves v2 and Snow Daze

This article has the unusual feature of linking to two videos rather than only one. For "Can't Rush Fall Leaves, Parody of Can't Hurry Love", I had speeded up clips for January 10, 11, and 24, maybe conveying attempts to hurry fall leaves. I decided to leverage the video but still retain all of the images.

I created two separate videos from the leveraging:

• Can't Rush Fall Leaves v2 [link], [runtime]
  • Removed introduction text and audio.
  • Removed snow day clips for January 10 and 11.
  • Replaced January 24 4x-speed clip with real-time clip.
• Snow Daze January 10 and 11, 2021 [link], [runtime]
  Used only snow day real-time clips for January 10 and 11 (no audio, lyrics).

Original song info:

Song: You Can't Hurry Love
Artist: The Supremes (redo by Phil Collins)
Writers: Edward Holland, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland
Music: "You Can't Hurry Love - The Supremes | Karaoke Version | KaraFun", Feb 7, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnqE7FRxV-s

---

Related, parody of Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do":
"Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (with scrolling lyrics)" (video, article)
"Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (widescreen)" (video, article)

Can't Rush Fall Leaves, Parody of Can't Hurry Love

Not sure when leaves start falling, though autumn officially starts late September. I hadn't thought to take pix or record autumn leaves and trees until late December. During raking around then, I thought of parodying "Can't Hurry Love" with initial title of "Can't Hurry Leaves". Refined it to "Can't Rush Fall Leaves" to match syllable count. I took pix and recorded clips on the following dates:

December 29, 2020
January 1, 2021
January 4, 2021
January 9, 2021
January 10, 2021 (snow day, imaging through glass)
January 11, 2021 (leftover snow)
January 24, 2021 (foggy, still leaves on trees)

Partial listing of my lyrics:

I feel glum some with autumn leaves,
And I been raking before Halloween.

A gardener said,

You can't rush fall leaves,
Some seem glued to their trees,
She said some do fall easy,
Often unexpectedly.

You can't rush some leaves,
Some will cling to their trees,
As though they were stuck,
No matter how some winds might gust.

But how many fall leaves
Must I stand,
When I step outside,
It's time to rake again, ...

Original song info:

Song: You Can't Hurry Love
Artist: The Supremes (redo by Phil Collins)
Writers: Edward Holland, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland
Music: "You Can't Hurry Love - The Supremes | Karaoke Version | KaraFun", Feb 7, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnqE7FRxV-s

---

Related, parody of Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do":
"Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (with scrolling lyrics)" (video, article)
"Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (widescreen)" (video, article)