Johnnyreb, good to see you back here.
Thanks Orley! Not sure I'll have much new to contribute though.
Broken tines & little spike tines work well & it's no great loss if you lose one. I think the end caps I have used are 3/8" dia & that's about the perfect size of tine to use. I even tried concaving the cap to see if it would help mound up the cherry sort of like Brad's clothespin idea, but it didn't seem to help much.