Pcola Pirate
New member
Howdy all...This will be a pic heavy posting of how I 'modified' a home depot Ames wood $9 handle to fit vs buying their proprietary $35 plus shipping version, if you are a frugal person like me this is the way to do it...The scoop was bought 'like new' but well below the new price of $169 from find mall site's classifieds section (tahnks goes to GunnarMN). In the weeks to come I will comment on the difference vs my RTG 48" aluminum take down beach scoop...
The wood handles from home depot or lowes or any other hardware store will work. This is a handle made for post hole diggers, notice the two holes for the bolt hardware.
First off I needed to fill those holes, so I bought some 7/16" wood dowel, then rough cut them to size and used some epoxy to set them in the handle.
I then used a harbor freight palm sander to sand them flush. I next tried to rough install the handle
But I needed to make sure there was a flat spot sanded on the handle to make sure it fit nice against the back of the scoop.
(picture in profile)
Once this was all done I had to still adjust for the stainless steel u bolts, so I had to use a rat tail file to sand some spots of r them. After this was all done and loosely put together, I disassembled it and then used some clear gloss polyurethane sealant to protect the wood
Once it was all dry, I realized that since the handle was a bit bigger, I had to shim the foot brace. I used some non metallic washers (not wanting to deal with dissimilar metal corrosion due to salt water use) and they worked like a charm, they are pictured with the polyurethane above. Tools used for this were a Harbor Freight palm sander, both a regular and ratcheting 7/16" wrenches, a rat tail file, and lastly a ratchet and 7/16" socket.
Here is the finished product...It is nice and heavy, but I need to work out my forearms a bit more anyway...will attempt a lighter handle real soon after more research...
The wood handles from home depot or lowes or any other hardware store will work. This is a handle made for post hole diggers, notice the two holes for the bolt hardware.
First off I needed to fill those holes, so I bought some 7/16" wood dowel, then rough cut them to size and used some epoxy to set them in the handle.
I then used a harbor freight palm sander to sand them flush. I next tried to rough install the handle
But I needed to make sure there was a flat spot sanded on the handle to make sure it fit nice against the back of the scoop.
(picture in profile)
Once this was all done I had to still adjust for the stainless steel u bolts, so I had to use a rat tail file to sand some spots of r them. After this was all done and loosely put together, I disassembled it and then used some clear gloss polyurethane sealant to protect the wood
Once it was all dry, I realized that since the handle was a bit bigger, I had to shim the foot brace. I used some non metallic washers (not wanting to deal with dissimilar metal corrosion due to salt water use) and they worked like a charm, they are pictured with the polyurethane above. Tools used for this were a Harbor Freight palm sander, both a regular and ratcheting 7/16" wrenches, a rat tail file, and lastly a ratchet and 7/16" socket.
Here is the finished product...It is nice and heavy, but I need to work out my forearms a bit more anyway...will attempt a lighter handle real soon after more research...
