bambooweb.info

Hello Kudzu. Thought about you the other day when I was examining the vivax black spot you gave me.

I have used the Bamboo Spade from MidAtlantic for many years. I traded with the Silverman's for the first one. It has dug/ cut 100's of root balls. It broke last year at the impact area, but I was able to weld it back and it's still digging. I sharpen mine so much that it's about to be too short to do the job. I have since bought 3 more bamboo spades. These are cutting devices, and not intended for prying. I use a long wrecking bar, and a King of spades for prying.

David-
Good to hear from you. Sounds like you’ve put some miles on your shovel! I don’t sharpen mine because my soil is so full of rocks that the edge disappears quickly. So I need a little more brute force taking divisions.

Yes, they all get considerable use. This area is booming with lots of new homes that need some privacy, so the market for screening bamboo is wide open. I don't dig much anymore. I just hire the work out now.

The discussion of breaking a King of Spades has me wondering if I need to be careful with mine. I only weigh about 145-150 lbs. I've pried on my shovel pretty hard, assuming I could pry as hard as I wanted without risking breaking it. Is that a safe enough assumption at my size?

I'm not sure that your size matter so much, I've broken one if not 2 of them and I have not broken them many many many times when prying hard enough that you'd think it might break. I've sort of developed a 'feel' for when I'm starting to pry too much and back off. I don't know how to describe it though, it might be a matter of me prying hard enough that I think the object should lift and if it has not then I stop.

I tend to treat mine with respect, and have never broken it, but I believe it could break or at least get a bend in the blade. I'm 180 pounds, and apply a bit of force at times, but I've used all kinds of tools for decades and have a good sense of when to stop. I recommend that you do what I do: when I feel like I'm getting close to the point of applying too much force to my $200 bamboo spade, I substitute my $25 demolition bar and pry with that. Since the demo bar is basically a long, solid steel pole, it sometimes helps to have a rock handy to use as a fulcrum.

Gil, nice to hear from you! I brought my King of Spades to Hawai'i and my new damage trick is to have destroyed the tip out here. I have no soil, only solid lava with 2-3" of a mass of roots/rotted fern/lava granules, digging a hole with a shovel is impossible. Trees send LONG shallow roots all over the place but I've cleared out several trees and shrubs which will resprout unless I remove the stumps and since I can no longer dig a hole I've abused my King by chopping roots against lava until not the bevelled edge and tip is gone and my poor King looks much smaller now.

I second the demo bar idea. It's all I ever pry with and has a very slight bend now. That just makes it better at prying when you turn it so the bend is up.

Brad, sounds like you need a nice big mattock!

Just got one but too late for the King. Alan did you wake up to frozen shoots today?

Only Rufa was shooting, and they were only a couple inches tall -- they're fine!

Everything else still shows at least some green and leaf buds are expanding.