Recommended tools

Excellent. If yours doesn't break or bend by my payday, I'll order one too. Let us know how you get on with it.

 

My new mattock has arrived, sanded the handle varnished it and marked it with paint and its ready to be used!

This type is definately 100% better than the standard grubbing mattock, my very well used normal mattock and pick are pictured for comparison.

 

Looks good!

Went to neighbours the other evening and they had the builders in. They have removed the heads from their pick axe handle and placed them next to the handles under an upside-down wheel barrow.

I was curious as to why they had removed the heads, any ideas?

 

Perhaps the handles had shrunk a little and they were expecting they would absorb moisture and swell or perhaps had soaked them.

I don't subscribe to leaving handles untreated, IMO bare wood is more susceptible to shrinkage plus you get splinters. All my tools get sanded, 2 coats of polyurethane varnish then a regular rub with a linseed oil soaked rag. I never get any loose heads, splitting of handles or splinters during use.

The builder I sub work too has a length of scaffold pipe welded to his pickaxe head in place of the timber handle, the vibrations transmitted upon connecting with a rock must be awful but I guess he never needs to replace it!

 

No children about, and the heads were right next to the handles ....

... I'll ask, might be revealing

 

Our lads remove them simply because they are wider than a barrow and so easier to hide laid length ways. Funnily enough we had three barrows stolen in a week but the picks and shovels were left:D