In article , "David E. Ross"
wrote:


PS Took 40 years to get here and it will change )

Nice little post. Most of my garden tools are either restored vintage or
very traditional. I avoid anything with plastic parts. I even have an old
wooden wheelbarrow. Usually the old styles are tried & true better tools.
Occasionally there are modern versions that might be a bit better but
they're also uglier & to me gardening has an aesthetic edge to the work
that is lost if one's tools are ugly or plastic. My only tool with a
plastic part is a dibble for getting up carrot-rooted weeds, I've never so
far found one with a wooden handle that worked so well.

I also have traditional Japanese saws, one with a three-part wooden handle
to reach up, higher up, & way higher up in branches. Some of these these
types of tools were used by medieval Japanese peasants in uprisings to
fight very effectively against samurai.

-paghat the ratgirl

New tools with wood handles are often inferior to tools with metal or
plastic handles.

I bought a leaf rake at a local nursery. It had a wood handle and
replaced a very, very old rake with a wood handle. The old rake kept
leaving splinters in my hand until I wrapped the handle with duct tape.
The grain in the handle of the new rake was such that the handle broke
after only three months. How many of us would even think to check the
grain of the handle of a garden tool? I now use a rake with an aluminum
handle coated with vinyl.

I have an old trowel with a plastic handle. It is quite comfortable.

On the other hand, I really appreciate the "give" in the wood handles of
my lopping shears.

There are unforunately many companies having cheap, cheap, cheap vintage
look-alikes made in Korea or China to sell often at the check-out-stand of
chain hardware stores at seeing great bargains, or pricy as "designer
tools" in independent nurseries. The metal is rarely tempered so metal
necks will bend or break with their first use. The handles are not a
quality hardwood but sometimes just pine and will give off splinters or
wear out quickly. It's a buyer beware market, but going for plastic is not
the answer, as they have the same imported trash problems to induce the
unwary to waste their money.

-paggers
--
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