Shovel As SAK
A hollow crowbar seems like a bad idea.
Indeed.
However . . .
The theme and spirit of this tool seems to be that of a robust (if oversized) Swiss Army Knife for digging and such.
I have a couple of e-tool type shovels. They're basically crap. They didn't cost much, and they don't do much. I have used one to dig one of my tires out of a snow bank. Took 45 minutes. Hurt my back in the process. Ergonomics of a greased steering wheel. Flimsy, hard to hold, no right-angle mode, tiny shovel blade . . . with a little work and thought, I could come up with a poorer design. I think. If I worked at it.
My dad had an old Army shovel from back in the day. The shovel blade was larger, the wooden handle was thicker and sculpted for better ergos, and the locking collar was threaded and heavy. You could literally use it for an expedient stool without fear of hurting it. Had the right-angle setting. Dad used to trench around our tents with it when we camped out. It was a seriously robust implementation of the concept. I haven't seen one of them for sale in tens of years.
This one harks back to that earlier example, except that the handle (being a steel tube) is stronger.
In the spirit of Swiss Army Knives, it has other features that make it a compact substitute for a box full of other tools. The claim is that it does the jobs of some 13 other tools. And I suppose that argument is essentially true, but also in the spirit of the SAK, it won't to any of them particularly well.
It's a shovel. I can buy a better shovel.
It's a hoe. I can buy a better hoe.
It's a crude hatchet and/or machete. I can buy a better axe, a better machete. Already have them.
It's a bottle opener. Seriously? I've always got a couple of those on me anyway.
It's a crude saw. I have a way better folding saw in the truck.
It's a crude crowbar. I've got top of the line crowbars. A whole set of them.
But what I
don't have is a three-pound tool that will combine any significant number of those functions.
The most significant aspect of the tool is the improvement of the strength of the shovel itself. This new version will take a serious beating. I haven't see any destruction tests, but I can tell that the quality is certainly better any portable folding shovel I've bought in the last twenty years.
The saw edge isn't exactly a new idea, and the usefulness of that will depend on how well the steel is hardened and how sharp the teeth are. The sharpened shovel "knife" edge is also not a new idea, and the same caveat applies. (You guys may remember the video showing the Chinese tactical "multi-tool shovel" in action. I haven't found it yet. I'll link if I do.)
Later . . . It showed up, and I didn't even have to look for it -- see post #27.
See here for details.
In the simpler (
Tactical) model, the "crowbar" is a curved and flattened extension of the handle. Very simple. The
Extreme version has a pry end that's had to be modified several times in an attempt to accommodate the hammer head. I've not handled any of the previous versions of the hammer/crowbar thing, but it's clear that's not a perfected idea yet.
John's observation about the "hollow crowbar" is certainly valid. On the other hand, in the spirit of the SAK/shovel idea, having
any kind of crowbar feature is a step up from having none. I prefer the mechanically simpler
Tactical model for that. It might just be enough to pry open a car door or some such other thing, whereas the crap shovels I have now would simply fail completely at any such attempt.
His "Crovel" (the
Tactical one, anyway) is a full pound heavier than my dad's old army shovel, but if the saw really works worth a damn, the "knife/hatchet" cutting edge performs at all, and the crowbar will actually pry what a shovel won't, then I think maybe he's onto something.
What I don't know is whether the steel in the blade is hardened sufficiently to hold an edge on the knife/axe or saw blades. I'm not even sure what kind of heat treat/tempering process would work for that. I don't even know if the steel he chose for this will even take a knife/saw level of hardening.
It irks me that the
Tactical version shovel head doesn't have the pivot, and you sacrifice another two pounds to get that feature with the
Extreme model. Yes, the "uni-frame" design of the
Tactical is going to be more robust, but c'mon, we're gonna give up the right-angle hoe mode and
still charge a hundred bucks?
The other thing that irks me is the retail pricing. Yes, I agree that if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere and a tool like that can save yer butt, then it's cheap at twice the price. However, I really do expect the price on the
Tactical version to come down some. I'm thinking $55 is the sweet spot for that, maybe $60. Especially given that the head doesn't pivot.
I would love the opportunity to field test one of these things, though.
And I would in any case happily replace the one in my truck with one of those. Provided I had a hundred bucks lying around unused.