SkySgt
Jr. Member
- Jan 19, 2014
- 73
- 37
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett ATX (PI) and Garrett Ace 350 (VLF) detectors.
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Just finished making a sand shovel for use at the beach. This one is similar to the ones shown on YouTube (see video below).
I used a 42" Poly Pro Tools One-Piece Shovel ($28+), like this one found on Amazon:
Poly Pro Tools 42" One-Piece Shovel
The most tedious part was the drilling of the holes. I wanted it to at least look semi-professional (okay, call me anal). The only power tools I used were a handheld jigsaw and a drill with a 9/32" drill bit.
Uniform spacing of the holes was achieved by using a polka-dot pattern found via a word search on Bing:
Black Polka-Dots
This pattern was copied into a Word document and printed onto a very large 8.5" x 11" sheet of peel-n-stick label. The label sheets can be found on the Avery website ($14+):
Avery White Shipping Labels #5265
The label was trimmed to fit on the blade around both sides of the handle shaft. Once trimmed, it was peeled and affixed to the blade. With the sticky side holding the label in place, the holes were drilled right through the label.
The square blade of the shovel was cut to form a point, by marking the center point across the front of the blade, and then marking two points on the blade's sides, 3" down from the front of the blade. Then, drawing a line from the center mark to each of the marks on the side of the blade (3" was the most aggressive I wanted the point to be, but you can make the point as deep or shallow as you want .... Too deep of a point may lead to flexure in the point while digging, and may cause it to snap).
Enjoy!
I used a 42" Poly Pro Tools One-Piece Shovel ($28+), like this one found on Amazon:
Poly Pro Tools 42" One-Piece Shovel
The most tedious part was the drilling of the holes. I wanted it to at least look semi-professional (okay, call me anal). The only power tools I used were a handheld jigsaw and a drill with a 9/32" drill bit.
Uniform spacing of the holes was achieved by using a polka-dot pattern found via a word search on Bing:
Black Polka-Dots
This pattern was copied into a Word document and printed onto a very large 8.5" x 11" sheet of peel-n-stick label. The label sheets can be found on the Avery website ($14+):
Avery White Shipping Labels #5265
The label was trimmed to fit on the blade around both sides of the handle shaft. Once trimmed, it was peeled and affixed to the blade. With the sticky side holding the label in place, the holes were drilled right through the label.
The square blade of the shovel was cut to form a point, by marking the center point across the front of the blade, and then marking two points on the blade's sides, 3" down from the front of the blade. Then, drawing a line from the center mark to each of the marks on the side of the blade (3" was the most aggressive I wanted the point to be, but you can make the point as deep or shallow as you want .... Too deep of a point may lead to flexure in the point while digging, and may cause it to snap).
Enjoy!
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Funny thing, is I was just watching that Fred Barnes video yesterday, and I've been dreaming up my own beach shovel EXACTLY like yours. The only think I would do is not so many holes for more strength. Up here, we got beaches, but its definitely not sugar sand!
