I needed a good spade that could fit into a large bag, so i though a good quality fold away spade would do the trick. I had a look around on eBay and came accross a spade that seemed to be just what i needed. I went ahead and bought it. When it came i made time to go out and do some metal detecting, i really wanted to use this spade, it folded up to about 9 inches, and when fully extended out it was about 26 inches.
It seemed like a good quality spade to begin with, but after about 1 hour it was totally useless. I came accross some roots while digging, and i thought this high quality spade, with it's serated edge would slice through roots like butter! How wrong i was..The spade just gave way, bent all the way over on itself! I bent it back to it's original shape but it was too late..The joints that attach the spade head to the shaft have now come loose, so now it's unusable. I made contact with the seller on eBay, told him how long the spade lasted and he gave me my money back, and rightly so. I wouldn't mind if i had had the spade for a week or two, then it broke, that would be fair enough, but after an hour!
One word of warning: Do not buy a fold away spade. All of the ones i have seen on eBay have the same joints that attach the spade head to the shaft, there not strong enough to last, in some cases not even an hour. Get yourself a proper spade. I managed to get another spade from eBay, which is very good, the spade head and shaft are all in one, so there's no joints that can pop or weaken under pressure. It's been excellent to dig with.
Here is my bent spade! Bear in mind that it's meant to be straight.
