As fate would have it wood handles on yard/garden tools can degrade fairly quickly if left out or not properly maintained.
I kind of hate to admit it but this is the handle on one of my shovels. This week I’m reworking all my wooden handles getting them ready for the upcoming gardening season.
Handle on flat shovel, or square whichever you prefer to call it. It’s been a good shovel and I feel bad that I didn’t catch it before it got this bad, however I will stop it from getting worse.
First I’ll fill all the cracks in with a high strength wood filler, sand down and give it several coats of boild lindseed oil.
Step one is done see picture below. I ended up just rubbing it in to the cracks with my index finger. You could use a flexable putty knife if you want but the putty washes right off your hand, though you risk getting a splinter so choose wisely. The boys cat photo bombed the shovel.
After it dries for a day I’ll start sanding it down, I don’t want to get too carried away as I’m just looking to smooth it out, not remove much if any wood.
Decided to sand just enough to make the wood smooth and knock the grey off.
Now to seal with boiled lindseed oil. It took more time and work than I thought it would but I put the putty on thicker than I thought. Looking back a putty kniffe would have been the better way to go. Live and learn.
The blade need a little tlc as well, the edge is pretty beat up. I’ll wire brush the rust off, straight up the edge and sharpen and it should be good to gp for another 20 years or so.
I’ll post a picture sometime after it’s all cleaned up. I hope this helps someone.
Slocum's Creak 