Digging Tools

During a short period of rest in a current Earby P.C. dig, the conversation got around to favourite digging tools.

One member confessed that he had actually changed his will to leave his 5ft Titanium bar to a different member of the club, as the previous possible recipient had given up digging.
Another member, this week announced on Social Media to all and sundry that he had been reunited with his best crowbar, that he had left in the far reaches of a desperate dig.

This got me wondering if others in the Digging Community were protective of their personal tool ? (no pun intended)  and do you give them names as in fictional swords of old?  i.e. Long Claw, Sword of Darkness, Excalibur, Dark Repulser.
 

AliRoll

Member
The Horse murdering, super mattock proved quite popular for surface digging. (no horses were hurt in the making of the tool)
 

Bottlebank

New member
darkdescender said:
One member confessed that he had actually changed his will to leave his 5ft Titanium bar to a different member of the club, as the previous possible recipient had given up digging.

Which is much appreciated and very generous of him but he doesn't have permission to pop his clogs just yet, we need all the staff we can get :)
 

royfellows

Well-known member
As daft as it sounds for my projects a good garden trowel and a little skip made fro a 5 gallon plastic container with a metal bottom of sheet steel bolted on and a rope to drag it along.

Also a good tool is the mini spades that appeared about 3 years ago and usually sell for about ?12, shaped pointed blade and plastic handle.
 

Subpopulus Hibernia

Active member
I called my first crowbar Ol' Bluey, even though it was so old most of the blue paint had chipped off. I then called my next crowbar Le Crowbarsier, in honour of the great architect Le Corbusier (I'm an architect too).

The Shannon Group also had a much-loved sand-burrowing tool called the Gaybar, on account of its bendy shape.
 

Cookie

New member
We have a fine and sturdy trowel called Doug.

There is another trowel owned by a less frequent member of the digging team called Dougless.

 

pwhole

Well-known member
royfellows said:
Also a good tool is the mini spades that appeared about 3 years ago and usually sell for about ?12, shaped pointed blade and plastic handle.
Indeed - the Roughneck shovel is my favourite implement - super-tough and very light:

http://www.screwfix.com/p/roughneck-round-point-micro-shovel-27/53829

ae235


 
Yeah those roughneck mini shovels are the ducks nuts. Tough bits of kit can even be used for prying open cracks. Standing with the muck at shoulder height I find is the most productive angle for optimum mucking with these.

I Also like the Silverline mini Mattock, though it ain't designed for picking solid rock its good in clay, gravel, rocky mixes. 

Another joy to use are 14mm plug and feathers or -forgetting to bring them in- more brutal and destructive a cold chisel forced into the drill hole.

Strangely I too have a Gaybar
Subpopulus Hibernia said:
The Shannon Group also had a much-loved sand-burrowing tool called the Gaybar, on account of its bendy shape.
. though it cos its the tiniest, most pathetic item in the dig. Tis just a wee crow bar. 

Also have The Hammer of Thor, known by my European diggers as Mj?lnir. A full sized sledge hammer deployed when the dig gets big enough. An obliterater of rocks though the dust from it turns my snot black.
 

cavemanmike

Active member
we also use roughnecks to clear the track in the milwr tunnel, fine bit of kit even withstands levering the track into position when putting new sleepers in (all called doug or dig)  ;)
.5 ft crowbars( named lefty and righty) are handy especially in those dodgy boulder chokes when you want to be far enough away when it rumbles
 

cooleycr

Active member
I have a "poking" tool that I fashioned from a length of aluminium (an old aerial mast) with a weed extractor head bolted to it (http://www.worldofwolf.co.uk/products/weed-extractor--iwm.html).
It has proven to be very useful in situations where you don't want to be too close to the dig face, for example I loosened a silt blocked winze from below without getting buried alive and at another dig I used it to remove some very large run-in (deads) without getting all mashed-up!

I call it the Safety Lance (and yes, I do often find myself singing the Men Without Hats song whilst using it!!!)  ;)
 

Bottlebank

New member
My current favourite digging tool, which has no name as yet, is something similar to this:

http://www.diy.com/departments/ryobi-18v-cordless-reciprocating-saw-rrs1801m/174025_BQ.prd

The model I have is a ten year old Mac Allister which no longer seems to exist bought for one job from B&Q, and pronounced useless. It then languished forgotten in the garage.

A couple of months back I'd spent a frustrating few hours hacking away at tree roots in the garden with a variety of weapons, and chatting to a friend in the pub that night he suggested it would have been easier to borrow his reciprocating saw, at which point I remembered, too late, that I already had one.

By coincidence the following day we were thinking about how to cut down a 600mm plastic pipe and cut footholds in it for an entrance shaft and I realised that in the unlikely event the batteries still worked the saw might just do it. Amazingly after being used just once and ignored for ten years both batteries seemed fine.

Not only does it cut plastic pipe down it also happily and easily cuts scaffold bars and planks, and I'm still only on the second blade.

In the last couple of months I've also used it to cut out an impossible to remove shower tray, cut through floorboards and of course a couple more tree roots and one or two other small jobs.

Every digging team needs one. It's without doubt the best digging tool I never knew I had and if anyone can come up with a name we'll get it christened.

 

Mark R

Well-known member
My favourite tool is my capping rods (and Hilti drill and caps and mat). I call them my capping rods (and drill and caps and mat).
Off to retrieve them tomorrow night.
 

pwhole

Well-known member
The Roughneck Micro Shovel is currently on offer at Wickes for ?9.99. At that price, worth buying two.
 

cavemanmike

Active member
pwhole said:
The Roughneck Micro Shovel is currently on offer at Wickes for ?9.99. At that price, worth buying two.
bought 2 of them a month ago for digging out and clearing some railtrack  in the milwr tunnel, broke one 2 weeks in and the other one looks dooooooomed  :( :( :(
 
cooleycr said:
I have a "poking" tool that I fashioned from a length of aluminium (an old aerial mast) with a weed extractor head bolted to it

I made a scaling bar with an aluminium aerial mast , with a tungsten carbide tipped tooth from a mark 2 Dosco roadheader inserted on the end.
WIPP-08.jpeg
 
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