Folding shovel

[EastSussexScout]

Off on a greenfield camp soon. Just wanna know what to go for, what to avoid at all costs and what kinda things to look out for.

what have you got? can it deal with some serious digging?

Cheers all

 

[garethw]

hi there
I have two different folding shovels both from military surplus. One is a wooden handled job, where as the other is a Z shaped US three piece model.
The latter folds down small and can be packed in a rucksack, the wooden handled on fits down the tunnel on the pocket of my Alice pack. Both do a reasonable job... toilet duty, small digging jobs, leveling swims while fishing etc... None of the folders I've seen would deal with 'serious digging'.
There are Chinese wonder shovels, or German army models... they are bigger & heavier. At the end of the day if I need to do any 'serious digging' I don't use a folder, but a decent shovel or spade.
I keep the wooden handled one in the back of my 4x4 and it is a tool to help get me unstuck if needs be, not my first choice, but it is compact enough to be lodeged in the cargo net on the back door of the car and remain there. For winter I fix a decent shovel to my roofrack to help deal with snow.

cheers
Gareth

 

[Old Bones]

If you want to do serious digging, then a proper shovel is the best answer, but a pain for storage. I've got the Austrian wooden-handled entrenching tool http://www.endicotts.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=122&products_id=2374 which is pretty heavy duty. As far as the folding shovels are concerned, the German one seems to get the best reviews http://www.endicotts.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=122&products_id=786 - your paying more for the real thing, but the reviews http://www.flecktarn.co.uk/flbsp1ux.html confirm that you get what you pay for.