Your spade was with you through innumerable gardening projects and home improvement disasters. Even though your trusty buddy may still work fine, its wooden handle might be starting to show its age. A wooden handle becomes weathered and dry due to exposure to sun, varying temperatures and moisture from snow and rain. Restoring a wooden handle to its prior glory ensures it’s up to any undertaking. Storing the shovel correctly after the recovery will guarantee that it stays looking its best.
Put on a dust mask work gloves and safety glasses. They’ll protect you from dust, fumes and oil throughout the shovel handle’s recovery process.
Lay the spade on a flat surface that is straightforward to achieve, such as a workbench. Brush the whole surface of the wooden handle with a wire brush, removing all pollen, dirt, cobwebs and other debris which collected on it. It’s a good idea to brush the shovel’s metal blade as well.
Wrap a piece of 120-grit sandpaper around the base of the handle, where it matches the shovel’s blade. Hold the sandpaper in place by putting your hands on top of it and squeezing it all of the way around the handle. Hold the spade still by putting your other hand firmly on the blade.
Transfer up the sandpaper and down a 6-inch-long section of the deal, trimming all rough, splintered sections of timber. Sand the part 10 to 15 occasions, and run your glove over the timber to check whether it is smooth. Resand each area of timber which snags your glove.
Transfer up the sandpaper the handle to another section, and wrap it around the handle . Sand that part in precisely the same way you sanded the first section. Continue sanding the handle until you reach its best.
Wipe the shovel handle from top to bottom with a tack cloth, removing the sanding dust from the surface.
Pour 5 or 6 tablespoons of linseed oil onto a sterile cloth. Wrap the cloth around the top of the handle, and move the cloth up and down the handle to use the oil to the handle’s wood. Cover all sides of the deal with the oil, employing additional oil to the cloth if necessary to saturate the deal with oil.
Let the shovel sit undisturbed overnight. Feel the manage another day to determine whether all the oil soaked into the handle’s wood. If the deal feels dry to your signature, then use another coat of oil to it. Continue oiling the manage daily until it feels greasy.
Wipe off excess oil the handle by using a sterile cloth.