Garden hoe and the benefits of using it
Content
Description of construction
Choppers are an indispensable tool for creating irrigation grooves before watering with your own hands, not autowatering. An indispensable tool for hilling plants, since with the help of a long handle, you can loosen in the most remote areas. A summer resident's kit always consists of several types of garden tools, for example, a hoe and its hybrid (hoe, loosener), both factory-made and self-assembled.
Garden hoes are made in different variations, which allows you to easily do a wide variety of work on a successful site. Depending on the required work, choose a hoe with different blade widths, with pointed or rounded corners, trapezoid or triangle shapes.
The material from which the hoe is often made is carbon steel. Such material is easy to sharpen with your own hands, but it is most susceptible to corrosion. In order for such a tool to serve you as long as possible, after each work in the garden, thoroughly clean the remnants of soil and grass from the blade, and then lubricate with oil. Stainless steel hoes are more popular with summer residents, since stainless steel is more durable and requires simple maintenance. The only negative is the price.
A hoe is the same hoe, only its blade is made in the form of a hemisphere with a pointed end. This type is more suitable for hilling, creating holes for planting, as well as beds for potatoes, vegetables, legumes on rocky soils.The difference between the hoe-loosener hybrid from the classic type is the presence of non-bent ends, with which you can easily weed out the weeds of creeping plants.
Technical features
If we talk about the technical characteristics of a country tool, then, in fact, a hoe is a small metal shield, which is attached at an angle of 90 degrees to a long wooden handle. The shield is made in the following forms:
- rectangular;
- triangular;
- trapezoidal.
When buying, choose the type that is most suitable for the upcoming work. Pay attention to the material for the manufacture of the metal sheet, since it is he who determines the quality of the purchased tool. Often, the farm needs hoes and shovels of different lengths and shapes for hilling, forming beds and removing weeds.
How to do it yourself
Today, you can easily buy the necessary garden tools in any specialized store. But if you are a "homely" summer resident and like to do everything with your own hands, then why not make a hoe yourself.
So, let's look at how to assemble a garden tool from available tools with your own hands. As a handle, you can use any long stick from the tools available, and for the blade you can sharpen any hardened metal from what you have in the barn and is no longer quite working.
Video "Choppers with a handle at work"
Practical advice
Consider the option of using an old saw blade to create a shield for a hoe, since it is his experienced gardeners who most often recommend for use.The material for the saw is of increased strength, but at the same time it is quite flexible, increased resistance to wear. One such hoe, assembled with your own hands, will be enough for you for a season of active work.
Stage 1. Preparation of the material. Break off a piece of metal of the required length from the old saw. The most convenient length is 25cm, but you can make the piece wider or slightly smaller, thereby adjusting the tool for yourself. Next, using a grinder and the thinnest grinding disc, the blade is cut at an angle of 45 degrees in relation to the saw teeth so that this part is shorter. This simple technique will reduce the weight of the tool without reducing its working area.
Stage 2. Mounting holes. At a distance of 2 cm on the side of the saw teeth, drill 3-4 holes, leaving an even distance of 3-4 cm between them. We drill the same holes in the metal corner. As a result, the holes on both parts should match.
Stage 3. Attaching the holder. At this stage, you will need two parts with holes and a metal pipe 25cm and a diameter of 30mm. We hammer one part 4-5 cm inward and make two holes to pull the corner. After that, it remains to connect all the parts, and in the end you get a hybrid of a hoe with teeth, fixed on a corner, which is connected to a metal pipe.
Stage 4. Wooden handle. The holder can be made of any material, like a shovel, with which it will be convenient for you to work: pine, maple, larch. Handle diameter - at least 3.5cm. We grind one edge of the holder and hammer it into the pipe. To prevent the wooden holder from falling out, you can fix it with a bolt, after drilling a hole, or hammer in a nail.
Stage 5. Sharpening of the working tool. As soon as the gardening tool is almost ready, all you have to do is cut off the teeth with a grinder. If you are making a tool for loosening the soil with your own hands, then the teeth can be left on the contrary. The grinding disc will help you sharpen the hoe, and then in the process we will sharpen it with an ordinary file.
The second commonly used variant of "home" production is a shovel hoe. In this case, you will need a steel bayonet shovel, which is no longer suitable for the work as intended. Cut off the bottom of the shovel with a grinder and get a triangle. Using a file, we remove burrs on the cutting side, then you need to make two holes for attaching the metal holder with rivets. Now all that remains is to insert and fix the wooden handle in the holder, and the garden hoe is ready for work.
The third option for making a garden tool with your own hands is a hoe from a piece of metal. If you do not have an unnecessary shovel or an old saw, but you have an unnecessary piece of metal, then making and sharpening a hoe is as easy as shelling pears. As a metal, it is best to take a steel sheet 2 mm thick, and then several stages of work:
- cut out a rectangle 7 by 25 cm by means of a straight cut. Process the edges of the canvas in order to avoid injury;
- we knock down an ordinary corner 25 by 25 cm and weld it to a metal sheet;
- using metal clamps, we attach the handle to the corner;
- sharpen the blade of the hoe with a grinder, and grind and varnish the handle;
- this is how you can quickly and as economically as possible make with your own hands a tool from available tools for working on a garden plot.
Video "Correct sharpening and bending of the hoe"
This video can be used as a practical guide to caring for this type of handheld garden tool.