Tool time... Shovels and spades...

Old Tools are often Good tools, as they were well made with quality materials, take the quality of steel for example. British Steel was at one time the best and the likes of Sheffield Steel is still regarded as used in some of the best made knifes, 

This old Diving knife I was given is a good example of quality...

I got some lovely old military shovels, their designs combine a shovel and a spade so are more versatile in different conditions, like this Diamond Shovel on my Jeep, pointed it will dig through hard ground very well...

I have two other military shovels i have re handled to use metal detecting, The larger No 2 size with a `D handle` was an Army shovel from an unknown year that was again like a lot of old tools i own were my Dads as long as I remember, which I stupidly stored in a damp area and the shaft rotted, and I have never forgiven myself for doing so...

The larger shovel is now 6 inches shorter as the handle had rotted through so I cut off the rotted point after grinding and punching out the rivets then refitted it having shaved it to a new point and used cut down 5 inch nails and re riveted  it, you do this using the ball point end of an engineer hammer and an anvil or similar to hammer the rivet, handy we have a couple of anvils in the garden!...

With the rounded tip of the larger shovel it is better for digging into and moving sand, and being shorter it's now ideal for digging under Sea Buckthorn, digging out say a WW2 Pill box or similar, or when kneeling on a sand bank etc...

The smaller 1980`s stamped NATO shovel with `T handle`is brilliant for digging through small roots and stoney ground...

I also have this military style mini shovel that was my Dads and while not genuine military it is of a very good quality...

As you can see it has a removable head and an axe head...

And the spring button you push in to swap the heads is actually on a saw blade which you pull out using the bottle opener on the shovel head...

This real neat bit of kit is going onto my Surly Pugsley Fatbike I set up for winter  and be ideal for trail clearing work etc... - more on that soon!

While spades tend to be flat bladed and straight shafted for digging over soil etc for gardening a shovel will be slightly angled and curved or have lips on the sides and used to move sand, gravel, small stones etc...

You cannot really lift turf for instance with a shovel but you can roughly with a spade - but not to Links Greenkeeping standards! , so how do you lift turf by hand?, Well you use what we Greenkeepers refer to in the trade as a Turf Iron, or `Turf Lifting Iron` or what we call them here on the Scottish East coast a  `Swan neck`, and again the  old ones made by the likes of Spear and Jackson who still make them today though the quality is nowhere near like the old ones with poor welding etc... old ones were made from quality Sheffield Steel and often made by Blacksmiths and lasted for years, they usually out live the ash handle shafts, and I have a cracking old example I need to clean up and re handle...

You can see where the swan neck name comes from... and look at the workmanship how the metal has been shaped...

Yep I defiantly need to get this done and made usable again!...

We got a heads up from Al he had found what he thought was an old spade head - minus shaft out at JMCP on the mud flats...Curious if it was military or not we took a low tide cycle to retrieve it, unknown if heavy or not i stuck the Fat BOB trailer on an old Pugsley as not used the trailer for a while and its fun to use, and following his directions we soon came across it...

Left as he found it at the remains of a WW2 Anti Glider Pole base...

Loaded onto the trailer we took it home to see if it will clean up and we can ID it...

 

It looked to me like a Peat cutting shovel as they are long and narrow and have a slight curve in the blade, But can now confirm it is a drainage spade, we will try clean it up soon by trying the process Electrolysis...

Wee film cycling to collect it, Song is `Constants Are Changing` by Boards Of Canada,

More soon...