Make a Potty Trowel Mk 4 (28g/1oz)

Background

After the Mk1,2 and 3 I thought that I could tweak the design to reduce the weight still further. The one real limitation was that it be no less than 6 inches / 15cm long since that is the minimum depth of cat-hole suggested by Leave No Trace

Design Features

I thought that the Mk 3 design worked pretty well and made the most of aluminium that you can find in some DIY stores.

I though the best way to reduce weight further would be to reduce the physical size of it and in particular to reduce the size of the trowel blade relative to the handle.

Materials

• 30cm of 25x10x1.5mm L shaped aluminium.
• 6 or more rivets

Construction

For this project I did not actually measure anything but instead just cut by sight.

I clamped the two pieces together and cut the blade and handle using a hacksaw. I then changed the way the pieces were clamped to cut the taper into the ridge.

All edges were filed to remove burs and to round them off.

How to Use

It's not actually used as a trowel. It's used more like a trenching tool. The trowel is pulled you towards and down. You may hold either end to dig. It is not designed for comfort!!!

The handle-end can be used for tough-to-break ground and the trowel end for softer ground.

Field Testing

It's been tested out in the wild. The dirt on it is from a forest floor. The forest floor was really tough to dig out but you can see from the pictures that the trowel is not distorted - meaning that is tough enough.

Extras

For my trowel I used a piece of scrap waterproof nylon to create a 2g carrying pouch. The pouch is used to protect my other lightweight gear from the trowel. Another alternative would be to drill the trowel to fit a lanyard.