How to Replace a Broken Shovel Handle: Skill Set

• shovels
• homeowners clinic
• gardening
• tools
• Skill Set

Replacing a shovel handle is one of those disappearing rural skills that demonstrates basic mechanical competence — just as wrapping duct tape around a broken handle denotes the opposite. The most overlooked part of the job is getting the grain direction right.

To replace a handle, first cut or grind off the rivets and slide the old handle out of the blade socket. When you mount the new handle, orient its grain so that the oval rings are to the side of the handle, not on the top or bottom (relative to the blade). “Get the grain direction right and you’ll have a long-lasting handle,” says Dave Randolph, who helps crank out 25 million shovels and similar tools every year as a plant manager for Ames True Temper in Camp Hill, Pa. “Get it wrong and you’ll be making another trip to the hardware store before you know it.”

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