Where have all the good shovels gone?

[mercenary]

My current unit, like all before, has lost all its good shovels. They are being replaced by the sort of ridiculously heavy, blunt, and clumsily weighted crap that gives you a bad back in about 10 minutes. In trying to buy more today I was shocked to learn that the aforementioned crap was not the cheap stuff, but the only stuff available.

Does anyone know where to find old style light shovels made with good quality steel? Please help, me and my bad back are desperate!

ps. The internet has been a bust so far.

[Oxbeast]

Have you tried Tubal Cain? Based in Sheffield, they know about shovels and such.

http://www.tubalcain.co.uk/index.html

[deepdigger]

I've started using american style long handled shovels, with a round face. excellent for digging and very easy on the lower back, really good for back filling(you know when no-one else turns up)!!

deep

[vulpes]

Had this problem yesterday at Wickes. They've been taken over by Travis Perkins and stock a really peculiar range of shovels, from postholers, trenching shovels, to big 'coal' shovels, suitable perhaps for duty on the Settle to Carlisle line! All I wanted was 6 normal all steel, tapered end shovels. They suggested Homebase - pricey! Got what I wanted from Keyline - don't know if they have them up north but worth a try. Tubal Cain's look good - perhaps too good?! (that'll upset someone, no doubt). They could also probably do with the business having been burgled recently, so yeah try TC. The long handled ones are good for some things but not so much for digging or clay soils, do save yer back though.

[mercenary]

Thanks guys. I'll try them. I too like the long handled american style, maybe I'll buy my own. I once saw a long handled trenching shovel. Niice!

[deepdigger]

Spear and Jackson make them, available from MSF (countrywide) farm stores!!

deep

[BAJR Host]

Try asking for a mattock!

slack jaws all round.... then I find a dusty rusty one in the corner...

I miss good shovels too... bee looking hard for them myself... should be able to balance on a fingertip and slice through butter...

Another day another WSI?

[Pete M]

Have you tried a local 'Farmer's Supplies' ?

My local one has a range of tools not found in other places, like mattocks.

[Beki]

Spade's are usually always ok, sometimes you get the odd bent one but usually they're nice and sharp. Shovels are always stupidly heavy and covered in years of rust that just won't shift....occasionally you find one shoved in a corner that is if a managable weight and easy to use.

Mattocks...now mattocks are never ever right. Usually I find they are so blunt that they won't even go through sand (ok..maybe thats not true...but they're bloody blunt) also, you always get the ones where that mattock head just slides down the handle as you're mattocking..

tut...tools eh, they're never that good.....unless you're on a university training dig...and then they're smashing cos the departments can afford to buy nice spanking new tools.

[gumbo]

Does anyone else get really pi***ed off when someone from the office goes out to buy the shovels, and buys these really wide bladed things, were its more like excavating with a tea-tray: that really gets my goat.

Also some mattocks are definetly slightly lighter and this seems to help with the 'art' of the mattock. As an esteemed colleague of mine states: '...you can paint with a mattock...'

G