I have a few shovels and hard tine rakes with broken handles and noticed a replacement handle is more expensive than a shovel.

I have a post hole digger and a sharpshooter that have 1.25" 16ga steel tubing handles so I don't throw the tools away but I am sure a lot end up in landfills.

So what's behind the cost, lower demand for handles due to cheap throwaway tools?

Same thing with wheelbarrow handles - 15-20 bucks each, and you can't buy a set.

We live in a mass produced cheap unit price throwaway society. If you factor in the value of your time to replace a handle, you've saved money by just buying a new tool and getting back to work.

That’s white collar thinking.

This drives me nuts. I don’t know why replacement handles are so pricey.

I must live under a rock. I have been using tools all my life and have never heard of a "sharpshooter" tool . WTF, over?

Yep. Same for sledge hammers and axes. Got a few handles need replacing.

There is your answer....

When Ace Hardware stopped saying it was place wity helpful hardware "man" (now it's folks) so that is politically accepatable

Also when Suzanne Somers got too old for their commercial spots.

😄

Sort of all went to crap after that.

I am going to take a guess that they are figuring the average shopper is just going to buy the replacement handle and not notice they are getting screwed. They are doing it on purpose just to make more money.

Fancy marketing name for a trenching shovel or spade.

Also I pick up spare tools at garage sales. I have two or three of everything for just a small fraction of their retail cost. That’s a great way to get your replacement handles.

Yours may be, but I skulk about at swap meets and garage sales looking for old English made shovels and then re-haft them with good oiled hickory handles.


And God help any sob that dares to look cross-eyed at any of my tools.

Simple one word answer, China. They've flooded this country with shoddy tools of every kind, I buy American even if it's used tools from garage sales.

Many of my wood handled tools are shorter then designed, due to being refitted, rather than retired. Several long handled shoveled have become D handled as well.

https://www.househandle.com/products-2.html#straight

I have a lovely light English shovel here that I picked up at the town dump, now I am looking about in an attempt to source one of the older style handles with the curve in the wood rather than being straight like all those damned chinese handles are.

If it irritates me enough I shall make one.

Steam bend one.

Sharpshooter

There is a fellow that makes the old style out of blue-gum, I shall see what he has to offer.

Steaming is not as hard as most people seem to think. Make a jig, and make many for sale.

Edit: nearly every wooden sailing ship was built with steamed or soaked planks.

At one point, in recent times, people became too lazy to fix stuff that breaks. They are even too lazy these days to sharpen a knife, that's why there are knives with replaceable insert blades and automatic knife sharpeners being sold. Have you ever taken a 10 year old string trimmer to the shop where you bought it to be fixed? The labor and parts cost nearly as much as a new trimmer. Folks just buy a new one instead of fixing the old one themselves. These are the times in which we live.

My wife wishes that was true, every time she has to move the pile of axe handles I have in the corner of the laundry room.

"String trimmer"...do you mean "whipper-snipper"?

lucky here, a long running flea market in northern Missouri at Rutledge has a guy that sells good handles for about anything cheap

It was some time after the TV repairman became obsolete....😊

When did shovels become throwaway tools?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This phenomena has been ongoing for several years now
as more civilized people have been opting for cremation.

I just bought a new transmission for my tow-behind rototiller. Both sides of the housing were cracked. To buy the housing parts would have cost nearly $600. To buy a complete transmission with new gears, bearings, chain, etc., was $250.

Lucky, if it had been made by Toyota you would have had to hock your house for the repair.

flea markets are a good place for new handles at reasonable prices. sometimes you have to do some trimming but they're good quality ash or somesuch wood usually.

Always called that a track shovel. What we use to clean the mud out of the tracks on bulldozers in winter so it wouldn't freeze in the sprockets.

Trenching shovel, and not seen around here as most wouldn't dare to touch it in case they had to actually use it.

I try to avoid them as well.

Everybody in this neck of the woods Ive ever known in my brief 62 year stint here, black & white, young and old, always called em a sharpshooter.

Why? I dunno. Gotta be a colloquialism.

Edit!

Jstuart,

That hose faucet just to the left attached to post. 60’ water line I put in with said device last March. Gotta dig my own ditches here.

Ditto, well almost, I ain't quite that old.........

Then you definitely have an appreciation as to why I avoid them.

Oh yes!!!

I found an old shovel last month. Kind of a scaled-down longhandled shovel that looks like it was made for kids. Maybe 2/3 scale compared to a normal one. The handle was mostly rotted and was rusted up pretty good. Took a file to the cutting edge and it is made from some good steel. Figgered it was worth saving. Found a handle that would work at the hdwe store for $9.00. Took some re-profiling and sanding the laquer finish off and a few coats of BLO to get 'er in using shape. Handy little bastid......

To me, that is a trencher.

Not only were shovels made with good steel, they were made of thinner steel that lent itself to a lighter and handier tool.

This is kinda fun read!

http://moderndayredneck.blogspot.com/2011/11/bill-dookie.html?m=1

Me, I just call a spade, a spade. ...

Went out and took a pic....

Don,

Yes Ive seen em like that before and they are handy as hell!!!

I found it on a powerline. The local electric co-op replaced some poles a few years ago and musta lost it....

Damn good find!! When I worked for the old road company I found all kinds of stuff. My best find was a 16’ fiberglass extension ladder. Like to never got that thing home!!

I have one exactly like that in the UTV

It's a regional thing. My Tennessee dirt farmer grandfather born in 1910 always called it a sharpshooter as did everybody else around. If you'd asked for a trencher or trenching shovel they'd have looked at you funny with no idea what you meant.

That sharpshooter was always a drain spade to me. The round end matches clay drain tile diameter so you can smooth a bed of sand and lay the tiles with a good run. Drain spade to my late Pa, too, where I learnt it. He was an Iowa boy to put some region on it.

It is too bad you can't find tools made to last. I have a 1943 coal shovel I assume my FIL borrowed from the railroad. Glad I don't have to get to know the working end of it.

OK, thanks.

My point is that they don't want to stock parts, just the whole item. Like shovel handles, they don't want to waste space in the store for low profit parts. They either don't sell them or they jack up the price to an unreasonable level. They don't want to stock all those individual transmission parts so they price them way higher than they're worth.

I used to know the name and brand of those shovels that are solid steel rather than hollow in the shank. Those are the sheit. As far as I know they still make them. You can find solid ones in antique stores sometimes. They're the only kind I'll use. The one I use now has been re-handled a half dozen times. "Old Rusty, the Boss's Shovel" Also look for as straight as you can get so you can dig a deep hole if needed.

That's because you are not buying a quality shovel. I just replaced a handle on my irrigating shovel for the third time. At $10 to $12 apiece for the replacements I still have less into it than replacing the shovel once, if I could find an actual replacement.

Ames Pony shovels start over 50 bucks, but unfortunately it is a piece of crap compared to the original Ames Pony Featherweight which I grew up with. The new shovel weighs more, the blade is thicker, the balance is schitt, and they will not hold an edge.

But hey, who wants to pay for real quality tools today? Nobody does, when they are buying the tools for short term laborers. Back when the guy writing the check was the one running the shovel, he paid for the finest he could find.

That's exactly right, see my post above.

https://www.amleo.com/ames-pony-forged-round-point-irrigation-shovel-with-47in-ash-handle/p/2IS/

I see them lately advertised as a "round point shovel".

I’ve got one like that, but it’s got an extra long handle. I always figured it was for cleaning out post holes or the like. It’s a favorite for relocating dog shît with the scoop and launch technique.

Everybody is right - sort of. There are at least two versions of similar spades:
1. Tile spades (or drain spades, or trenchers). these are what you'll find in the local hardware store.
2. Tree planting spades (or sharpshooters). very similar in appearance, but typically reinforced for heavy prying, wider foot pads, sharpened tips when used in firefighting. The long, narrow blades copied from tile spades are good for planting long root seedlings. Available thru forestry equipment suppliers.

Anyone sorry this came up yet??

I could talk shovels and adjustable wrenches for days.

Maybe, but the ones sold at the hardware store which you're calling "tile spades" were what were called "sharpshooters" by everyone I knew which were all middle Tennessee and Mississippi dirt farmers. Back when I learned the word tree planting pretty much didn't exist so no one would have ever seen a tree planting spade. When pine forestry got big in my area manual planting was done with a dibble bar. Nowadays the mexican planting crews mostly use hoedad's because they can plant faster with them than a dibble bar. Still to this day no one in my area would know what a tree planting spade is, but our version of a "sharpshooter" is still what you're calling a tile spade.

Bring that sucker to Alaska and fill a pail with razor clams!

I can definitely think of worse subjects to cover.

I understood your point...but I own Toyotas and it amuses me to point out just how damnably expensive anything with the "big T" on it is in comparrison to anything else.

Oh man, I have a definite weakness for old catalogues!

Blew my mind, the first time I saw roofers climbing on to a roof with shovels. WTF? These shovels had a straight edge with teeth and a D handle. They were quite handy at stripping the shingles and felt off the wood surface. Years later, I was on one of those crews, and used the same type of shovels. It took shingles, felt and nails in one pass.

Hmm. I think I've broken maybe 1 handle in my lifetime. IMHO maybe they're breaking because the owner's trying to do more with the tool than it can logically handle.. Ya think?

So, what y’all northern folks call a grubbin’ hoe?



Edit!

Btw, the tool I’ve spent many miserable hours usin’!

I was dragged grudgingly to a thrift store last summer to look for a chair to wait it out while the women folk filled bags with stuff we don't need.

To my surprise I found this gem. Couldn't find a price anywhere on the thing, and finally summoned a worker there. It was written in black marker...no, not $200, or $20, the shovel...er, spade, was a whopping $2! I'd fill the pickup bed with them if I could find more.

About those spades...

There was a construction site next to a convent. Workers being who they are, the language was pretty rough. Some of the nuns in the convent were offended by the language and finally one young nun went to the mother superior to complain. Mother Superior listened to her complaint then said "Sister Mary, these are good, hardworking men who simply call a spade a spade."
"But Mother Superior, that's the problem. They don't call a spade a spade. They call it a f...king shovel."

Agree. I needed to replace an axe and a maul handle recently. The store where I bought those implements carries handles but had none that fit my heads. No one seems to warehouse much anymore, but they will gladly assure a delivery in 5 to 7 days. If that was what I wanted, I'd do the order myself.

Boy, you guys really like shovels.

Wife's dad used to do a bit of genealogy research which often involved looking over old last will and testaments. Apparently common hand tools were prized and valued possessions back in the old days as each tool was included and itemized by detailed description separately in wills with names of who was supposed inherit what tool.

Right? a shovel thread will get more hits than a pussy thread.

When I get a shovel for the orchard.....usually at the flea market....I’ll clean all the dirt out of the socket and let it dry. Then I turn the shovel upside down and fill the socket with a two part epoxy. If a lot of space I add BBs. Good epoxy is pricey.
Tape the other end shut if too loose.

Not me! I'm a hydraulic man. The shovel went into obsolescence once the backhoe was invented.

It's tough to open corrugates in a wet field with a backhoe. A bit tough on the crop.

A shovel thread gets legs, because some of us are more familiar with a shovel than with the alternate subject mentioned.

Tile spade around here.

several years back i wandered by an auction at the local firehall. i cruised it quick and rolled on up the street to the restaurant i was heading to. on my way back i passed again and it was over and they were throwing stuff in the dumpster. i got 2 or three old grain shovels, a couple of hoes (not those kind) and a nice manure fork. still have them. i couldn't believe they were throwing them away. that manure fork is a prize. you can load a bushel of mulch on that baby and sling it 15 feet.

I can believe that. I collect antique woodworking tools. I have a pretty good collection of tools that can and do get used. The mark of a "True Carpenter " was a Plow Block Plane. If he had one in his tools, you KNEW he was a true professional. Nowadays, we would use a dado blade, table saw or router for the same job. A Plaw Block Plane is used to cut a preset groove a preset distance from the edge of a piece of wood. It was used to set the bottoms of drawers, in cabinet making. (I have one)

i have a full set of wood planes that were the wifes grandads. iron wood with brass and ivory fittings.
back to shovels. i just brought a new one home from the hardware store yesterday. it should be thrown away! the cast of the blade makes it almost impossible to stomp to depth. wants to roll . POS

This one is a bit on the ridicules side
But many had jeweled fittings, and inlays.
https://goo.gl/images/6ZAuiF

My dad was born in 1923 and grew up in an era when people had very little money and all the time in the world. I'm not rich by any means, but all of us have more money than most anyone during the 30's. Today time is in short supply. Dad would spend hours repairing something that cost $5. If it were something with family history that I wanted to keep then I might do the same. But if I've got a job to do I'm money ahead to trash it and buy another.

Buy shovels/ rakes & other yard implements with good hardwood handles. Sand and apply good coat of poly as soon as you get them home. Keep 'em in the shed.

first thing I do, is sand that 'good coat of poly' off.........

me too, linseed oil

Threads like this get ironically interesting when you get old. My grandfather worked in the woods and when an axe handle broke he didn't buy a new one he made it. Really nice work, other loggers asked him to make them. I have his draw knife with which he could work miracles. Unfortunately any magic in it went with him.

Today many wouldn't even consider replacing a handle. So if you're a manufacturer having to maintain a supply chain in balance there's not much money in replacement handles, more in selling replacement shovels. But for brand loyalty you still sell handles to the old farts that still think that way and mark up to maintain a profit margin.

I usually buy shovels, rakes and hoes with fiberglass handles

That way i can leave in the rain or whatever i don't care.

Just goes to show, you can't call a spade a spade nowdays!!!

I thought that way once but found fiberglass handles not as pleasant to use as properly maintained wood handles. I don't care what Sitka may say, boiled linseed oil has its uses.

fiberglass gets run over and its done for . have run over wood handles with a tractor or pickup and just had them flex.
another for boiled linseed oil. gun stocks and hammer handles too.

Fiberglass also starts to break down in sunlight. I have a couple items with fiberglass handles, but they stay in the shed when not in use. Fiberglass in your hands sucks.

You might be able to get handles cheaper by buying them straight from the factory. I know that walk-ins can, I buy all my handles there. But I do not know if they ship to individuals. http://www.tennesseehickory.com/products.shtml

I used the same fiberglass handled hoes, shovels and roofing tear-off tools for almost 10 yrs every day on roofs in the sun. Mine held up fine. Daily abuse, sun exposure.

Fiberglass in your hands are just something that comes with the job. Good thick callous hands take care of that.

Lest you got girlie- hands

Check out house handle...they are in Missouri and have been carving out hickory handled for years...their prices are reasonable enough to fix old tools...yes you can buy a handle fo an axe or shovel from a hardware store but they mark them up 300% .....keeps the throwaway mentality alive..