Changed a handle on my neighbor's shovel for him

[Clipper]

2 hours to change a shovel handle. He had broken the handle trying to pry a bush out of the ground. He was quite upset because the shovel had been given to him many years ago by his grandfather who claimed to have bought it when he was a young newlywed, after buying his first home.

It had the original hickory handle on it. It had been in the shovel for about 75 yrs. If you are familiar with wood, hickory is one of the hardest and strongest woods you can buy.

I figured it would be about a 30 minute project, having changed gardening tool handles several times in the past.

This handle was held in by a steel rivet through the neck of the shovel and through the handle. I ground the head of the rivet off with an angle grinder and drove it out with a punch. After removing the rivet it is normally not a problem to drive the handle out from the bottom with a hardwood dowel or brass bar and a hammer. That was not about to happen. If you have ever tried to drill hickory, it is like drilling hard steel. It took me over and hour to drill the top 4 inches in several places and chisel out the remains of that 4 inch piece. I still couldn't drive the butt out of it. It took me another hour to finally drive the bottom half of the handle out and that was only after heating the neck of the shovel with a propane torch until the wood inside was smoking. That expanded the metal enough to drive the handle butt out.

From that point it took me less than 5 minutes to fit the new handle and to drill and rivet it in place. Today it took me an additional 45 minutes to sharpen 2 drill bits and a wood chisel with a fine file and an oil stone. I could not believe that hickory could be that hard. I love putter projects but this one was a bit more frustrating than I like.

[BHU]

Imagine the work that must have gone into shaping a piece of hickory to make that handle & shaping it to fit into the actual shovel.

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

Wow sounds like a lot of work! Total price including labor----$698.00

[Clipper]

The old hickory handle was probably a major undertaking back in the day when it was made. The replacement handle was a Truper handle from Lowe's. It is made out of ash. Modern manufacturing processes probably allow for them to be easily made on modern automatic lathes. The new handle only cost my neighbor about 15 bucks and it was hard as nails when I went to drill the hole for the rivet. It should outlast my neighbor if he doesn't use it for a pry bar again.