The Shovel Discussion Thread!

Has anyone cooked over coals with theirs? I'm leaning toward the square shaped heads now. The German one is not square, but close enough.
 
DrivebyTrucker, I have never heard of cooking on an e-tool, but have heard of using an e-tool to take a cooking pot out of the fire or coals. John.
 
You can google dutch over cooking. It involves shoveling coals under and on top of a dutch over. This allows to bake or slowly roast food evenly. There are some great recipes out there. With a CS shovel, you can eventually turn the wooden handle into a char stick if not outright catch it on fire by dunking into hot coals repeatedly. You can also wrap the shovel head in foil and rest it over some coals to cook on. Though, this can ruin the temper if you have a furnace like fire. I'd keep the temp down while doing this and use your own judgment. It may be a bad idea, but many have done it.
 
DrivebyTrucker said:
Though, this can ruin the temper if you have a furnace like fire. I'd keep the temp down while doing this and use your own judgment. It may be a bad idea, but many have done it.
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You don't need much to ruin a HT.
Temperatures around 200°C (about 400°F) start to affect most HT (high speed steels probably go higher).
Any campfire easily hits 1000+ °C (about 2000+°F).
 
what exactly would you cook on a shovel that couldn't be done on a stick, rock, pit or embers?

Seems like a waste of heat treatment tbh.. much easier to take a metal cup, foil or mess tin.
 
DrivebyTrucker said:
You can google dutch over cooking. It involves shoveling coals under and on top of a dutch over. This allows to bake or slowly roast food evenly. There are some great recipes out there. With a CS shovel, you can eventually turn the wooden handle into a char stick if not outright catch it on fire by dunking into hot coals repeatedly. You can also wrap the shovel head in foil and rest it over some coals to cook on. Though, this can ruin the temper if you have a furnace like fire. I'd keep the temp down while doing this and use your own judgment. It may be a bad idea, but many have done it.
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I have cooked with a shovel. Not my first choice but sometimes you just have to make do. It was bacon and eggs. It worked rather well also. It was my wife's first camping trip with me. I remembered food but left everything else. That was 27 years ago(before we were married). City girl thought she was going to starve. Pitched the tent at a salt lick as that was the only place with out rocks. When she woke up the next morning to discover we had no pots pans or silver ware she started crying.
She has come a long ways since then. Of coarse she packs the mess kit these days.
 
(From that video up there)

I did get around there today, more like a small factory really, but nice, everyone going at it in there. Anyway, DeWit, 5th generation forger, took on some work for me he will perform back in the old blacksmith's shop in his spare time he says - most accommodating figure it turns out - to make up a couple of log dogs, something along the order of this.



E.DB.
 
used my cold steel shovel to demolish an old toilet seat for the fire! was lots of fun :D

I had to file sharpen the edge too as I used it to dig a small veggie patch the other day and hit a bitch load of rocks and stuff! easy job though as the steel is soft!
 
I found another A.M. Leonard nursery spade at a thrift shop. This one needs cleaned up a bit but it is a solid spade with the full metal strap and heavy gage steel.

i-vMFxvkc-L.jpg
 
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mossyhorn said:
I found another A.M. Leonard nursery spade at a thrift shop. This one needs cleaned up a bit but it is a solid spade with the full metal strap and heavy gage steel.

i-9z3xv4W-XL.jpg
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I like it. These sturdy old garden tools have more value in them than most people perceive. They can often be found for less than half the cost of a new import POS. And they are quality tools that will last a lifetime or more. Perhaps with the renewed popularity of gardening these old tools will become more popular, just as vintage axes have.
 
Square_peg said:
Perhaps with the renewed popularity of gardening these old tools will become more popular, just as vintage axes have.
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I'm betting they will. Just a hunch though. It'll probably take around 5 years to build the same kind of momentum, though, and even then it'll likely be less fervent than the demand for vintage axes. I do expect a stiff increase in popularity and demand for quality hand digging tools, however, and hand agricultural tools in general.
 
I'm late to the game but here's my entry.





It's a Razorback Tools co. spade that can be had for around $12. It says it's tempered but I don't know how much faith to put into it. I picked it up for my bug out bad because it's hard to find a good quality entrenching tool without spending a lot of money. I've used one for various work and it's held up quite well and comes in quite handy when a full sized shovel is too cumbersome.





The one side has been edged and sharpened to the point of rivaling a cheap machete through a combination of hand filing and a bench grinder. In tests it can sheer off a portion of pine 2x4 and hack off small tree limbs with ease.
 
Do yourself a favor and sharpen the other edge too. Sharp shovels work better!
 
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