A new digger

This is my latest digger. It is a standard shovel cut down to form a cross. The small blade has the advantage of  bringing a smaller lump of dirt out which is great if you cover your holes which I do. It is also a supurb root cutter and it is good for digging in rocky soil.   I got the idea from a T.V. program about the Incas in South America. The natives use a tool like this to farm the rocky hillsides with. Since it is a full length shovel you don't have to bend over to identify most trash and since it has a narrow blade you can easier kick the shovel out of the hole with your foot so you never have to put the detector down unless you are chaseing a coin with the pinpointer.  I don't know what technique others use but one handed digging with this tool works for me.I can dig a hole as small as a cup or as large as I want. I hope this helps someone. Gambol

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,24989.msg173117.html#msg173117

Karl, Good questions, I used an old "true temper" brand shovel. bought the head at a flea market and put a new handle on it. I wanted the old heavy type of shovel because I didn't want it to bend and I was afraid one of the new imported jobs wouldn't hold up. I marked the cut-outs with chalk and used a metal cutting blade in my table saw. Took about 5 minutes. The finished blade is 4" wide. (10cm) and was sharpened on the grinder to a knife edge. Look closely at the picture and you can see the edge has 4 or 5 deep notches which were cut in with the table saw. The notches were also sharpened to a knife edge. which is what makes it a good root cutter. A shovel normally tries to slip sideways when it hits a root but the notches catch the root and cut it if you jump on this thing with both feet which I rarely have to do. you can see I wrapped the handle with electricians tape and sprayed the whole thing yellow to make it easy to see if you lay it in tall grass.--- yesterday I used it to dig a target out from an old driveway which is made of broken brick and gravel. I normally don't dig targets that require a long handled pick to dig so I was vexed by this signal . I could still see where I had dug in the past and gave up.  Yesterday I got it.  blade was just the right width to go between the broken brick pieces and I found a quarter under rubble with minimal effort. gambol

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,24989.msg173279.html#msg173279

I really like this will have a go and do-one of my own i like how you have left enough steal so you can get a good foot on it for the harder surfaces well done and thanks for sharing 

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,24989.msg173331.html#msg173331

Nice design there for the digging tool, i use tools designed by Jimmy Sierra, check out his web page(google it) he has some interesting tools also, some are like a small version of yours.....DW

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,24989.msg173757.html#msg173757

I used a sharp shooter, cut it off to about 8" cut to a semi point.
I use a carpenter's canvas nail pouch it has 4 pouches of different sizes 1 for trash, 1 for gloves and water bottle, 1 for snake bite kit, top one for finds a leather loop on both ends works well for hand digging tools I hang the handle of the sharp shooter over the hand tool and just let it drag behind me. Nail pouch at Lowe's $18.00

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,24989.msg173780.html#msg173780