Finding decent shovels rakes or garden hoes is getting harder all the time. You go to the big box stores and everything they sell is junk, hate fiberglass handles. I am working on replacing lower quality and fiberglass handled stuff that I have with good quality wooden handle tools The latest thing to show up here is a rogue garden hoe, this thing is about a good quality garden tool as I have bought or seen in the last 25 years
Only reliable place I have found to buy decent hand tools is yard sales. Have hoes, axes, grub hoes, planes, draw knives etc that were made about 1880 to 1940 that belonged to dad and grand dad. Good steel, made right, and well broken in. Giveing them away as fast as I can find them good homes, 83 years old, have cancer, and 48 hours after the will is settled, will be a big yard sale as son gets place cleaned out to prepare it for its sale. Have 70 year old spading fork, forged and tempered, never bent a tine, neighbor saw me using it and sent off to one of the on line places, paid big bucks, tines welded on, not tempered and bend like rubber ever time you catch a rock, straighten them a few times and they break. Have Stanley low angle adj nose small plane, grand dad gave it to me in 1950, don't know when he bought it, most likely around 1900, still in tool box and use at least weekly. Hate to say it but yard sales, antique shops, etc now sources for best hand and gardening tools. Can get new hand made tools, very expensive and often works of art. Real crap shoot, don't know but a good blacksmith can still make good tools, take 4 hours to make by hand what a good blacksmith 50years ago using a power hammer would have made in 10 minutes with forms and dies, and the odds are that your "blacksmith" is an "artist" and while it costs $100 rather than $1 at a yard sale, it isn't properly heat treated and made with the right metals and really is only good to hang on a wall. Tools are a lot like rifles, old tools were AK47's, made right, rugged, not perfect, but designed to be used hard and hold up for many years, new tools are often AR16's, work well, look good, but have to be babied and cleaned and God help you if you "abuse" them as they will fail.
There are still a few places making decent tools but you won't find them in a big box store. And rarely even in a hardware store Razorback still makes a good shovel the Rogue garden hoe that I just got just screams quality. Unfortunately my area is not good to find vintage tools at yard sales and flea markets. I have several vintage axes including one my uncle bought new in 1939 or 40. I have decent post hole diggers in both the two handled type and twist type that are vintage. I have a garden hoe that is made by SWH that is German made and is quality tool. But you normally have to find a shop that specializes in that kind of tools or order online
Sorry Sloth ,, I haven't the 'puter knowledge to post picks. But ,, I went into a Goodwill store about 2years ago,, sitting in the rack holding all of the golf clubs was an on old mattox ,,, this was a smaller than average size mattox ,, but it was old ,,, and well used ,,, had a nail thru the handle to keep the head at the end of the handle. The flat digging blade,spade end was worn down to a damned near half of the original width . It was so worn down,, I just about didn't waste my 4 dollars on it . But I did . The next day ,,at work,, I had to demo an old cast iron tub to get it out of the house I n.v was working on,, I told my helper to go to the truck and get that mattox ,,, that 4 dollar mattox busted that cast iron tub into pieces small enough to carry it out of the house ,,, and didn't even scratch that tool. The best 4 dollars I've spent in a long while . That tool never bent ,, never wore down,, and the handle never felt like it flexed at all beating on that tub ,,, but the way that spade end of that tool was worn down,,, it really made you wonder just how much work that tool had done over its lifetime,,,,,
When I was a kid the old man who was semi retired had a power hammer and made tools for my grand father. shows a man using old machinery to make a slitting tool for blacksmithing and also making a pick axe. About 13 min in, he is making the cutting edge on the dirt cutting side, same technique was used to sharpen the pick. Or a new blade for your scythe. While he used the same drift to make the handle hole, it was used from both sides for the slitting tool, axe eye, and thus locked the head on, but from one side for the pick, adze eye, and thus the handle could be removed as the pick was sharpened by forging, not grinding. By about 1950 it was all gone, think the blacksmith shop turned into a welding place and most of tools, etc went to the scrap yard. Old tools were not cast junk, but good steel. He also had the ability to create the tools he needed, thus a chunk of rail road track could become a drift to put handles on. Big point was that the blacksmith could quickly make a good tool, no polish, hammer blow marks were still there, but it was very functional and with the power tools, he could still compete in price, could create just what you wanted, repair and rebuild it, select the quality of steel he wanted, all of it, now you get a stamped out rake with welded on handle connectors and either teeth to brittle and break or to soft and bend. If you do get into watching the old power hammers and all of the special tools the smiths made for them, it is a very deep rabbit hole and in my mind well worth watching. YMMV The controls on the hammer were such that some hit with hundreds of pounds of force, but could still touch a wine glass without breaking it. Notice how the smith can stop the hammer a couple inches above the work.
Lehman's has a lot of nice stuff, but they sure don't give it away. https://www.lehmans.com/category/tools-hardware DW
Making a potato hoe that is actually a tool. Handle is long enough to use, but in old pattern, more of a mattock style tool than modern hoe. No assumption that the ground is going to be roto tilled and perfect, works for soil with roots, rocks, clumps of earth. Point of hoe is made for pushing into soil, not shearing weeds 1/2 in below surface of soil, handle and head angle made for pulling up dirt and breaking up sod. Has a strip of heavy metal down center of hoe as well as both sides curved to stiffen hoe and keep it from bending. While we now refer to it as gorilla gardening, it used to be a sort of combination of slash and burn , no till, and letting the land lie fallow to get rid of bugs and get some strength back. With this style hoe you can get some sort of crop even the first year. It was back breaking hard work, not roto till, add fertilizer, rake, plant seeds, skim weeds off of a perfect seed bed, while standing up and using a sharp narrow hoe with very little effort with hybrid high yield seeds, bug and disease sprays,all of the modern safety net and if all else fails, go to the store and buy the frozen dinners and microwave them. . Think old movies of people in Amazon river area planting between the trees. Whole different mind set, not out for the highest possible yield, most return on investment, farming the largest possible area, all of the goals of modern industrial farming. The goal is to each and every year, with what ever effort it takes, raise enough food to survive the winter and live until the next crop comes in. If you fail, you die, there were no food stamps, FEMA food drops etc. Starvation and poor health were not something that happened in far off Asia, it was in France and the rest of the areas, bad weather, plague, war, it all made life a gambol.
Hands down the most used tools here are my stirrup hoes. The single most used was my old 1940s 10" Stirrup Hoe, it finally got so thin on the blade that it broke in early May. No better tools IMO for cultivating around and beside rows of anything and they are fast and actually a lot less labor intensive than fighting a tiller even the little mantis at getting right up to the plants,,,,,,,,,,and not ripping them out. So the quest began to replace my aging collection of Stirrup Hoes. Found a few in the general region at Ace and Menards so bought 2 each of Craftsman, Truper and True Temper, I am just gonna call it what it is...... They work they do a good job and they are all JUNK that might last 4-5 years. And the biggest I could find locally was 5", which the 3" - 7" are great for getting between plants but SUCK for going down the sides, 5" = 2x more work than 10" . So I was looking through the Johnny's catalog and ran across these, not particularly thrilled with the price tag on them or Johnny's prices in general but........... I will give the Swiss a shot and hope they are better quality than the junk I bought earlier this year. Will know in about 2-3 days when they arrive. Stirrup Hoes (Scuffle Hoes) | Johnny's Selected Seeds
usually when i buy a new shovel its a made in usa one from my local hardware store. i shave off the laquer from the handle and treat it with boiled linseed oil. sometimes i’ve drilled thru the tool and bolted the handle to it for added strength.
Seymour Midwest I have several of their shovels. Good stuff, USA made, reasonable prices. Full disclosure, I know a guy who works there.
trouble is with their poor marketing and distribution - you are lucky if you can find a stocking dealer within a 100+ miles >> they manufacture in our backyard and nobody carries their products ....
Unfortunately they have moved manufacturing of their chopping hoes to Mexico. I looked at them while searching for a decent garden hoe
