Renovating an Old Shovel

 We recently found a shovel or spade with the remains of a handle buried in the soil at our allotment in the village of Week (Devon). I thought this would be an interesting renovation to put a useful tool back into work. I checked with Percy W. Blandford's book, "Country Craft Tools" and found a reference to a "rutter" spade a "large and heavy tool for cutting drains". The one illustrated in Blandford's book has a length of 48 inches from the pointed tip to the top of the handle. However, I found other references on the internet to spades used by the Forestry Commission described as rutter spades with what looked like shorter shafts and having "T" handles of about two foot in width. They looked like the ones that were used to dig peat by pushing down vertically into the peat to make slices that were cut-out in blocks. The spade that we found was set at an angle to the shaft that wasn't designed to push down into the earth as a normal spade for digging. More internet research indicated it was more likely to be a "Devon Shovel", a hybrid of a spade and shovel used for both purposes and made in Devon and also called a "West Country Shovel". It was designed for digging and scooping action. It was used in Devon, Cornwall and Wales.

Anyway, I decided to go with the description in the book and make it four foot in length with a short "T" and perhaps just use it as a shovel but I'll decide that later when it's finished. Originally the spades were strapped with iron to attach the "T" handle to the shaft as they didn't have means to make a mortice and tenon for the joint. I'm not sure about that and maybe the iron strap was studier for heavy use.

I started with the spade, removed as much loose rust as possible and then treated with phosphoric acid to inhibit further rusting.

Spade before treatment and after the remains of the old shaft had been burnt off.

After that I found a storm damaged stem of alder and prepared this for the shaft. It wasn't ideal as the sap was rising and it had a few knots from side branches but was reasonable straight and thick enough to fit the spade collar (this was about 40 mm internal diameter) and much wider than most agricultural tool shafts. As noted in  Blanford's book, many spades had handles made from wood from copse or hedgerow and these were often far from straight. 

The alder stem used to make the shaft and "T" handle,

The first job was to strip the bark using a drawknife taking care to smooth-out the knots from the side branches. The shaft was then worked with a "stail engine" or adjustable rounding plane (see epub  "Woodcraft by Hand Tools" by Alan House).

First pass with the rounding plane or stail engine. The wood was too fibrous and green to get a good finish at this stage.

After the first pass, the shaft was left to dry for a week and then the process repeated to get the shaft down to 40 mm in diameter ready to make the "T" handle from the same piece of alder. 

The top of the "T" made from alder and rounded on the pole lathe to 38 mm diameter and a length of 170 mm.

The centre hole was drilled with a #11 (11/16 th) auger bit and the wood finally shaped with a spokeshave to get a sloping top to the "T". The tenon on the shaft was made by measuring the depth of the waste wood need to be removed to get to the diameter of the morticed hole. This depth was then cut with a kerfing plane set to 45 mm width and then chiselled in a sequence of a square, octagon and finally filed to a cylinder to produce a tight fit into the mortice hole.

Tenon on the shaft.

"T" handle showing the initial fitting.

The handle was then carved to shape and sanded ready for glueing. An ash wedge was also inserted into the tenon to ensure a tight fit. After this it was just a matter of treating it with linseed oil a few times and treating the spade with Hammerite paint to help protect the metal from rusting.

Finished tool.  Here you can see the angle of the spade to the shaft.

This will be my introduction to using a Devon Shovel as it will be useful on the allotment, probably to empty compost bins. It feels like a good balance and even though the shaft is thick, the balance and weight does feel comfortable.