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Coal scoop. The home I found it in had an old coal chute in the basement. They were commonly used as coal scoops and in grain silos because a wooden shovel is non-sparking. Fine coal or grain dust in the air is highly explosive.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
I guess most of them just got eaten up by bugs being made from poplar like that.
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There's got to be a reason (lost to the sands of time by now) that Poplar became material of choice. Does Balsam Poplar (for instance) have insecticidal or anti fungal properties? Because there are a number of other options such as dimensionally stable and easily carved White Pine or Basswood that could have served the purpose too.
 
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He said that basswood (also not rot-resistant) was the wood of choice but that poplar would do. He wanted something easy to carve. I can imagine life as a coal shovel didn't involve nearly so many bugs and rot as the dirt shovel and barn shovel saw. ;)

Coal tar itself is not a preservative but coal makes an icky nest for bugs.
 
With constant use bugs wouldn't pose a problem but these eventually got set aside in a dark out of the way corner and then the damage is quickly done, nothing left but to throw them onto the compost heap. The poplar is a good choice because it is so wear resistant where it's not getting exposed to impact damaged, that's because it has a long fiber composition. For example it makes an ideal floor in a hay loft but it wouldn't make such a good floor in a stable or your kitchen. I have rebuilt the old wheelbarrow with poplar which is holding up good, I think less susceptible to damage than the original pine wood which tends to eventually separate along the ring. Well, another thing I can only speculate on is that it seems to be a wood where you can remove much material and at the same time maintain sufficient strength, so those ratios come out in your favor. I just use my daily shoes as an example, carved from a block of poplar into a hollow vessel I can rest a good sized beam on top of them when I need to get a better grip.
 
Poplars are a large group,and i believe they differ considerably among themselves...In my area the most obvious one is cottonwood(Balsam poplar),though aspen and birch are also close relatives.
They do have a strange fibers,long,and i want to say somehow interwoven(this is an intuitive take,not scientific...).
A year ago i used Cottonwood for parts of a timber frame,and was surprised to see it check very deeply.I've always assumed that it's one wood not prone to checking,and that's one of the reasons that it was the wood of choice for these beautiful shovels.
But,again,poplars are all so different....
 
jake pogg said:
Poplars are a large group,and i believe they differ considerably among themselves...
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Really how could I have been more idiotic then to not included this more than obvious qualification. We should all be up shit creek without our paddels when Jake was not here. Thanks for reigning it in. If and when I go on and on about poplar what I mean is Black or Canadian. We have here in the Netherlands one poplar that until this autumn I really didn't think was worth a hoot. It's called Abele. Well I had seasoned some of that wood and when I got to looking at it, was kind of impressed and made a simple cabinet for a friend's atelier where he paints
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Here is a bit more drama.
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Ernest DuBois said:
With constant use bugs wouldn't pose a problem but these eventually got set aside in a dark out of the way corner and then the damage is quickly done, nothing left but to throw them onto the compost heap.
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Mine sat in a Tacoma basement for uncounted decades and is none the worse for it.

The predominant poplar in these parts is black cottonwood. As Jake described it has a coarse intertwined grain making it somewhat resistant to splitting. It has become a major source of paint grade millwork. The green tint is not popular with a natural finish but it is often dyed to imitate various hardwoods. It's also being grown for pulp because it grows fast.
 
I would keep it in that basement then.
Here is my poplar trough but it just stays in the barn. Still using it to scrape pigs in. Of course my trough and your shovel standing half a world apart may account for something.:confused:
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Kevin Houtzager said:
Ik had al een donkerbruin vermoeden aan je Nederlands Engels accent te horen ;) Maar dan moet je me toch eens uitleggen wat Abele is, want die soort ken ik niet?

Translation:

"I kind of figured as much that you where Dutch, judging by your Dutch-English accent ;) . But what is Abele, because I don't know that species of Poplar?"
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Populas alba anyway up here in Friesland not uncommon, and it grows fast. Some I have seen with 1 ring per cm.
 
Something I did overlook: Along with strength and stability and ease of carving and shaping, of course, is availability and cost of raw materials. Tree harvest and land clearing operations in Ontario leave behind, destroy or give away soft hardwoods. And none of the soft woods (whether deciduous or coniferous) have commercial value when it comes to marketing of firewood. The old shovel making gent probably didn't expense anything (except maybe transportation and handling) with regard to his wood purchases. White Pine has a ready market (ie ya gotta pay for the stuff) and model makers and decorative carvers in cities are quick to snap up Basswood which is not common compared to Poplar species.
 
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