Making my own tactical shovel .

K

Kevin the grey

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Aug 26, 2005
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Well I,m looking at it anyway . So far there is a heavy transplant shovel available at loblaws that seems the most durable . Its a little long in the tooth in that the square sided shovel is a bit long . It comes down to a barely rounded bottom edge . Thick guage metal good quality . It seems to be nickel plated . It doesn,t have that "plated" cheap look . I know its not solid nickel and it doesn,t look like stainless . Plenty thick to put on any kind of edge . Wood D handle is way too long . I think I would do away with it altogether . THe heavy duty socket is already very long . I think I would try and make a D handle plug to go in the end of it and have a sizeable emergency kit inside . As long as you guys think The socket itself would take chopping abuse ? The socket is long enough to give plenty of swing . I,m still looking around . So far this is number one . What do you guys think ?
 
I,m not much of a hand with an angle grinder for putting an edge on . I have a couple of shear blades I want to make into throwers I can practice on . Any grinding advice would be appreciated .
 
Thats a neat shovel . Almost looks medeval . It really looks like a good thrower as well if I modified the handle . They kinda did all the work for me . If I end up doing this it will be to modify a fairly inexpensive garden tool . You are tempting me with the sharpened tempered blade on it . Fifty bucks for something I can,t really improve upon is kinda paying them to do the work for me . Nice idea though .
 
Kevin the grey said:
...The socket itself would take chopping abuse ?
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Shovels tend to take heavy impacts alinged with the handle well as it is common to walk/jump on the top of the head to drive them into the ground. They usually don't take a lot of lateral forces but on occasion they do. The handles do break occasionally but there are rarely head issues. Throwing is really high impact though, you have to be really accurate or else the handles will shatter pretty quickly if the head is heavy enough to put a large torque through it. You can usually pick them up really cheap second hand, in fact with broken handles they are usually thrown out.

Kevin the grey said:
Any grinding advice would be appreciated .
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It isn't as hard as yout might think. You want the shovel helf fixed in place and move the grinder in a smooth arc. If you use a grinding disc it will remove material at a very rapid place and thus if you pause in one spot it will carve a hollow there readily.

-Cliff
 
Wouldn'y a military E-tool do the job for you with no modifications? It folds down to 1/3 it's size , all steel construction , one side of the shovel edge is serrated.

I know I dug out more than one humvee and busted plenty of cinder blocks with mine while in Iraq.

For what it was I thought it was a fine tool to have.
 
Cliff for the moment my idea is to eliminate the handle altogether . One shovel has suxh a long very well made socket that I thought I might just make a plug handle in the end of it . It all depends on if it is truly in liquidation and I get it for a reasonable price . If not I will shop around .
The only issue with this shovel is the length of the blade . It is way long I was thinking of cutting off a couple of inches . Do you think a transplanting shovel blade is normally differentially tempered and I would screw it up by cutting ?
I have a few spades at the house . I never buy one as people throw out the heavy duty ones cause to them they are heavy . I just want one that is a little more tactical in the respect of it being less rounded and so having the force more behind the side blade edge for chopping .
 
thebladerunr said:
Wouldn'y a military E-tool do the job for you with no modifications? It folds down to 1/3 it's size , all steel construction , one side of the shovel edge is serrated.

I know I dug out more than one humvee and busted plenty of cinder blocks with mine while in Iraq.

For what it was I thought it was a fine tool to have.
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.

it must be a tough tool to bust up cinder blocks without harming itself . I have a lighter duty entrenching tool . My purpose is to see if I can make a tactical shovel for less than the store bought variety . It will give me more experience with a grinder as well . This is still up in the air as I am checking out the advisability . I appreciate your point of view .
 
Shovels are usually hot formed, not hardened and tempered, aside from the multi-tool versions which are meant to be used for cutting/chopping.

-Cliff
 
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