Shovel shapes and sand pegs

Squre ended blade with rounded corners so you won't stick it through a sidewall.

Hi Tony,
As far as a shovel goes I would pick the sheild shape over the squaremouth any day. IMHO they are easier to use but do not shift as much sand each shovelful.

It's a personal choice for whichever.

Sand pegs, I use a 1400mm star picket cut in half (2 tentpegs per picket) but these are not cheap to buy just for tentpegs.
You may be able to do as a friend of mine does. He welds a 100mm square thin plate to the top of, with the top of the plate about 50mm below the bend on the top of the pegs which are around 12mm diameter.
He swears by them but I still like the starpicket idea.

Disco
(who is also a Tony.)

The shield will work better in rocks, but it's a camping shovel so we're not planning on digging too many rocks......... either will do.
Bigger is better when it comes to sand pegs, the folded galvanised ones tend to last a bit longer than the plastic ones which tend to get brittle and lose their heads. Don't forget springs on guy ropes - your pegs will stay in a lot longer that way.

For debogging and also digging deep holes in sand, I find it is best to fit a spade end on a long handle so that it can more easily slide underneath the 4WD.

A spade has a far shallower angle to the handle compared with a shovel.
Sharp corners are rectified by 5 minutes with an angle grinder.

Regards Philip A

Go for the square mouth. The reason for the square is it is about the same width of your tyre. If you have to bury your spare asand anchor point to get out of a bog the square will give you a better hole with firmer edges to help with the recover.

Round mouth are ok if you are shovelling dirt or stone onto or off a trailer but are not much use in the scrub.

The 'shield shape' or Farmer's Friend' style shovel are good for shifting bigger amounts of sand or mud, but the post hole style are better for digging latrine pits etc.
Wooden pegs also work very well in sand.

Just regarding shovels in general I prefer the square end for digging in particular and even for shifting really heavy dirt like clay, since smaller loads are easier to handle and the shovel is easier to drive into the dirt. Also I think the square end shovels generally tend to have longer handles (camping specific ones are probably different in that regard) which gives you more leverage to work with, but also more likely to break the handle if you rely on the leverage too much!
I haven't used the shield type all that much really, I think you've enthused me to give it a go on some dirt that is sitting there waiting to be shifted!
Ha ha, maybe you need to get some shovel practice at home before you decide? My Husband is good at finding lots of shovel work to be done at home! Grrr.

hopefully this pic works, as photobucket have changed something, so hopefully this URL works.