Big Boys Hobbies

Digging Tools: Lesche vs. Hori Hori

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DigDig618

New Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2015
Messages
26
Location
Southern Illinois
Up until now I have been using a knife (k-bar type), screwdriver, and/or a garden trowel for my shallow digging (depending on the soil and vegetation conditions). Lately I've been thinking about upgrading.

For those of you who have used a Lesche and/or a Hori Hori knife, which do you like and why?
 
I have used a 3-in-1 knife (The same one) which is almost the same as the Hori-Hori knife for over thirty years. I have stood on it and actually hammered it into rock hard ground without it ever once feeling like it might break. I finally retired it and am now using a Hori-Hori knife and I don't see any difference. I had a Lesche but lost it and never replaced it. Several times it felt like it might break but I am hard on diggers. I never liked the off-set blade on the Lesche. Some people do but I try to keep my holes small. I know a lot won't agree with me but that is just my experience with them.
 
I have both, and really don't see much of a difference the abilities of either. I haven't seen the Benefit of the offset blade, on the Lesche.

The only minor differences I have ever noticed is with the guard on the Lesche if you are pushing into hard ground and using both hands some of your force is against the flat gaurd and makes it just a tad easier.
 
Hori hori is too knife like to be carrying around parks, I'd prefer the Lesche personally, otherwise just grab any hunting knife...lol
 
Brand new to all this. I have a Lesche, but I am wondering if there are any tips on "how" to best utilize it. For the time being I'm doing my own yard, so working in sod / sandy / gravel soil.

I'm not really finding any "technique" mentioned here. My guess would be to either try to puncture/dig a triangle shape out or "cut" a circular plug, but I am totally guessing. One problem with searching a forum is that this is what I would call "basic" information, so was probably posted 10 years ago and as such will be on page 3,267 of the returned search results. :)

Any advice is appreciated.
 
I love my lesche - although I've had to sharpen it a few times, it has held up ridiculously well through my cutting into gravel, frozen ground, and prying up rocks and big pieces of iron. It probably should have died about 10 times by now but it still holds up. I bent the tip a bit at one point but my hubby just sharpened it and bent it back a little and it was fine.
It cuts a nice plug and I've never had any complaints.
 
FerroZoan said:
Brand new to all this. I have a Lesche, but I am wondering if there are any tips on "how" to best utilize it. For the time being I'm doing my own yard, so working in sod / sandy / gravel soil.

I'm not really finding any "technique" mentioned here. My guess would be to either try to puncture/dig a triangle shape out or "cut" a circular plug, but I am totally guessing. One problem with searching a forum is that this is what I would call "basic" information, so was probably posted 10 years ago and as such will be on page 3,267 of the returned search results. :)

Any advice is appreciated.
Click to expand...

There is a ton of info out there on how to cut a plug. Depending on the depth of the target I go with the horseshoe shaped plug and just flip the sod over. If shallow I'll just slice through the turf and then pry up enough to just open the slice and retrieve the target and then push it back down. Good link for the slit method from a few years back. http://www.goldpanprospectors.com/fi...Y_METHOD11.pdf Also check out http://detecting365.com/ NectarDetector has a ton of excellent tutorials on there that will get you pointed in the right direction.
 
T-Man said:
There is a ton of info out there on how to cut a plug. Depending on the depth of the target I go with the horseshoe shaped plug and just flip the sod over. If shallow I'll just slice through the turf and then pry up enough to just open the slice and retrieve the target and then push it back down. Good link for the slit method from a few years back. http://www.goldpanprospectors.com/fi...Y_METHOD11.pdf Also check out http://detecting365.com/ NectarDetector has a ton of excellent tutorials on there that will get you pointed in the right direction.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links. But the first one is 404.
 
T-Man said:
http://www.goldpanprospectors.com/files/METAL_DETECTING_RECOVERY_METHOD11.pdf try this one. looks like I cut some something off
Click to expand...

Thanks! That link got me the article, which took only 10 minutes to read. The methods described in it are something I had not considered, but seem like very good ideas to try.

When finding things like the trash I did on my 2nd day, mostly old bent nails, I can visualize the probe method slipping past the object. I would expect the same thing to happen with small coins, like dimes or pennies. So at that point switching to the slit method would become necessary to actually find the object. But it still would leave far less mess or evidence of a dig than what I have been learning to do in my yard. The soil is wet this time of year, and clumps together with our sandy yellow clay mix, requiring effort to suss out the actual detected object, scattering some dirt around the hole I dug. I had not been using a rag, so getting 'all' the soil back in the hole with a Lesche knife wasn't happening very well. This leaves a little muddy spot here and there. I cautioned my wife not to walk on them when she came out to chat, and she said she had noticed them on her way to me. So I am sure had some other landowner given me permission to detect, he would also have seen them. My next efforts will be to try those 2 techniques and learn to leave 'only footprints' the best I can, while still here in my own yard. :)

I've ordered a 31" Lesche T handle spade which came today. I think it might also work well for the slit technique, providing more leverage to make the 45 degree cuts on each side, especially in tough soil conditions.

I'm thinking this slit technique may be for what the offset handle Lesche tool was actually designed. Sad they do not provide instructions how to do that with the tool.
 
I noticed that he asked about a Lesche or a Hori Hori. Everyone chimed in on the Lesche. I found a Hori at a yard sale and took it on one hunt. Never again. That thing was a pain into the Aunt Francis. Lesche or Predator for me too!!
 
Thanks! Nice videos. I also got a kick out of the fact that when his is done playing, and the screen comes up with multiple other videos to choose, the one right in the prominent spot turned out to be a tutorial on "correct plug digging". :)

I tried the slot method today and it is by far a much neater process than my previous roughly hewn plug type digging attempts. I took a cloth along, but never needed it, managing to keep the dirt between the spread edges of the sod while I went after the target with the pinpointer. For deeper digs the cloth would have been needed.

As far as probing, the problem I have here is that when we built this place, we used fill dirt to level the lawn before planting the grass. The fill dirt came from the banks of a local river and stream, and has a lot of shale in it. So pretty much anywhere you attempt to probe, you'll be hampered by small rocks at various levels as soon as you press down. But from his video I can see its usefulness if the soil conditions permit.
 
1willi4 said:
I noticed that he asked about a Lesche or a Hori Hori. Everyone chimed in on the Lesche. I found a Hori at a yard sale and took it on one hunt. Never again. That thing was a pain into the Aunt Francis. Lesche or Predator for me too!!
Click to expand...

What do you want for the Hori-Hori? I'd never go back to a Lesche.
 
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