Hand tool with intersecting pronged wheels

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention seeks to further improve these known advantageous manually operable devices, wherein two prong stars rotate freely on each available shaft, such an improvement, inter alia, reducing the risk of corrosion and the number of shafts as well as improving the bearing guidance of the prong stars and their interchangeability.
This object is achieved, with a hand tool of the abovementioned type, in that two or more bearing sleeves, which carry the star-like prong arrangements and guide bearings, which are disposed therebetween and are made of plastics material, are detachably mounted on a continuous, straight, central axle so as to be non-rotatable and displaceable in the longitudinal direction of the axle.
Thus according to the present invention there is provided in a hand tool for loosening, cutting and crumbling garden soil or the like, comprising a continuous, straight, central axle; at least two pronged wheel arrangements detachably mounted, via at least two bearing sleeves, on the central bearing axle to be freely rotatable and mounted facing one another to form V-like arrangements, with each said bearing sleeve carrying one of said pronged wheel arrangements; and guide bearings disposed between the bearing sleeves and made of plastics material, said bearing sleeves and guide bearings being detachably mounted on said central axle so as to be non-rotatable and displaceable in the longitudinal direction of the axle: and wherein the central radial planes of the pronged wheel arrangements intersect one another at an acute angle so that the edges of the crosswisely interengaging pronged wheel arrangements which slide along each other, form cutting locations.
The advantage of such an arrangement is that, when several pairs of bearing axles are provided, the number of metal guide bearing members is reduced and so is the risk of corrosion.
These advantages may be further increased if, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the bearing sleeves carrying star-like prong arrangements are made of plastics material--the star arrangements being freely rotatably mounted on said bearing sleeves by means of inserted sliding bearing rings made of self-lubricating plastics material or the like