Dirt Hatchet - Higher Uses for Low-End Tools

I've had this cheap clunky hatchet for about twenty years, mostly kept in my car for emergencies.  It was never really good at any hatchet-like tasks.  The bevel is a lazy, rounded curve that doesn't cut well.  The head is thick and wedge-shaped but too light to split much of anything.  The metal is pretty soft and doesn't hold an edge for long.  As you can see in the pictures, the handle is made of cheap pipe and has a serious bend from some past abuse I put it through.  When I got a 16" Estwing hatchet a few years ago, I thought: "I should just get rid of the old crap hatchet, it was never much good for anything anyway."

But then I found that there are some scenarios where all those inadequacies add up to making it the perfect tool for a job.  Lets say there is a 1-inch thick root halfway down the hole I am digging for a fire pit.  I could hack through it with my little camp shovel, but the leverage isn't very good.  I could use my good hatchet, but I don't like hitting the ground and dinging up the blade.  The crap old hatchet is really the perfect tool for this job.  If I have to chop off a woody weed right below the root crown, same thing, Dirt Hatchet to the rescue.  Generally speaking I don't need to sharpen it much for in-ground things, and when I do it goes very quickly because the metal is so soft.

The dirt hatchet has turned out to work great for digging small holes in hard clay, chopping through subsurface roots and woody stems, and harvesting forest sod (a thing I am going to make a post about soon).  It feels like a lot lower-calorie way to dig in hard ground than either a shovel or a full-sized pick or mattock, for small stuff at least.  It's also nice to not have to worry about about dinging it up.

So it doesn't do any of the stuff that I bought it for, but it is pretty optimal for these other functions.  Usually low-end tools are purely a pain to deal with, but does anyone have any other examples of tools that became very useful because of the fact that they feel expendable?

This is part of the MoPID series of permaculture innovations that I am working on during my time at Wheaton Labs.  Check out the thread if you'd like to follow along.

That's funny!  Your Estwing hatchet is the equivalent of the 'good scissors' at my house growing up.  "Don't cut paper with the good scissors!  Use *those* instead!

Gary Numan wrote:That's funny!  Your Estwing hatchet is the equivalent of the 'good scissors' at my house growing up.  "Don't cut paper with the good scissors!  Use *those* instead!

Oh that's a great one too!  Yeah the bad scissors saw 90% of the total workload in my house as a kid as well.

Yes, I keep "junk" tools. And use them.

Just today I used a junk grub hoe (used to be a 2.5lb pickaxe) that won't hold an edge to bust up a gravel path that had vegetation growing in it. I needed to level the path for winter maintenance. No way was I using my good pickaxes on that! I'll clean up the grub hoe with an angle grinder, since there's no fine temper to worry about.

Funny thing: in a survival situation, I would almost trust my junk tools more than my good quality shelf queens, since I've beaten and abused the daylights out of the junkers and they're still operational. Silly me.

Great post David. Even better when I realized the hatchet pictured is the exact model we have here at home!! Now if I get tired of sharpening it I know it doesn't need to be brought to the scrapyard - still lots of uses for it.

I have dedicated collection of junk tools. These are the ones I use in places or situations were they are likely to be lost or damaged.

I have an awesome, crappy pulaski that is perfect for this. Cut roots with the (bent) axe head and dig with the grub hoe.

Until it finally blew up I had a "dirt saw". I would cut 90% of the way through the tree with my chainsaw and then use the dirtsaw to finish cuts that were guaranteed to dull the chain. It actually was probably more of a high RPM, narrow kerf sander than a chainsaw. Now days I am much more skilled so no need for that anymore.

I was digging a trench in clay soil earlier today and found myself wishing for a dirt hatchet.
It would have made shaping the sides much easier!