Indiana Bones
Junior Member
I got a gator scoop about a year and a half ago and wore out the rubber handle on it pretty quick and was having a hard time digging with it (and causing some blisters on the palm of my hand while pushing the gator into the ground) so I modified it!
I cleaned out the end of it an found some 3/4" solid soft steel bar and cut it into two pieces at 2 and. 1/2" in length...
Ground the center of one of the bars horizontally into a "U" shaped groove about one inch wide so the other piece would fit into it so i could weld them together....forming a T handle.
Place the non ground piece inside the gator handle and weld it to the ground and cleaned top of the opening of your scoop about an inch and a half down inside of it.
Clamp the now slightly lengthened scoop handle down and place your horizontal ....gound piece to form your T.
Weld that bad boy up ....clean it off ..grind off the slag n oil..
Clean with some denatured alcohol...and spray paint it with some good metal paint
Let it dry and.....whoooolla!
I don't expect the paint to last forever anyway but at least i tried to cover it
The gator scoop is now ALOT heavier and you will have much more pushing force down into
The ground !.....With out alll those painfull palm blisters!!
This made my common gator like a Mini Lesche type design
I can dig all day with this beast. And with much much more pushing force...
I'm sure folks who use the gator scoop know what i'm talking about.
Sharpening some of the teeth helped too as i had some getting kinda dull
Also you now have a miniture shovel without actually carying a shovel for average coinshooting....and it still looks like a regular scoop.
**Note...**
My welding skills are not very good but as long as you get some good beads...it will hold fine....i used a common 110volt wire fed welder...nothing special..
HH ! And easier digging.
I cleaned out the end of it an found some 3/4" solid soft steel bar and cut it into two pieces at 2 and. 1/2" in length...
Ground the center of one of the bars horizontally into a "U" shaped groove about one inch wide so the other piece would fit into it so i could weld them together....forming a T handle.
Place the non ground piece inside the gator handle and weld it to the ground and cleaned top of the opening of your scoop about an inch and a half down inside of it.
Clamp the now slightly lengthened scoop handle down and place your horizontal ....gound piece to form your T.
Weld that bad boy up ....clean it off ..grind off the slag n oil..
Clean with some denatured alcohol...and spray paint it with some good metal paint
Let it dry and.....whoooolla!
I don't expect the paint to last forever anyway but at least i tried to cover it
The gator scoop is now ALOT heavier and you will have much more pushing force down into
The ground !.....With out alll those painfull palm blisters!!
This made my common gator like a Mini Lesche type design
I can dig all day with this beast. And with much much more pushing force...
I'm sure folks who use the gator scoop know what i'm talking about.
Sharpening some of the teeth helped too as i had some getting kinda dull
Also you now have a miniture shovel without actually carying a shovel for average coinshooting....and it still looks like a regular scoop.
**Note...**
My welding skills are not very good but as long as you get some good beads...it will hold fine....i used a common 110volt wire fed welder...nothing special..
HH ! And easier digging.
