| Aluminium | White metal generally produced from the ore bauxite. Its main quality as a tool material is its lightness (aluminium’s density – 2.7 as opposed to 7.8 for steel): there are numerous types hiding behind the same generic term and derived from aluminium. The hardness and strength of these types varies enormously. There are very soft types of aluminium which are of no use in toolmaking and varieties as hard as non-hardened steel (zircral for example, used in aviation). |
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| Ash | European wood with excellent strength characteristics, springiness and appearance. This species lends itself very well to polishing and bending. Before the arrival of exotic woods, it was, along with dogwood, the king of materials in France for making tool handles. |
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| Batipro | A Leborgne registered trademark: all tools carrying this brand are the result of significant innovations and this makes them very special tools. |
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| Beech | A European wood having good characteristics, satisfactory for many of the less common tool handles. |
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| Bigard | Name of a regional soil working tool. We believe the name come from Savoie dialect but we are still searching for its origins. We hope that someone reading this might be able to tell us. |
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| Bi-material | The first fibreglass handles were made from fibreglass and polypropylene: and were thus called bi-material. When we added synthetic rubber to improve the feel, we created tri-material. Only the future can tell us what we will call a handle with four or five different materials! |
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| Biogrif | A Leborgne registered trademark: A tool which allows you to work the soil without turning it over. The inventor is a Mr Grelin who designed and sold “Grelinettes” to generations of gardeners who were aware of sound organic practices. |
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| Blade | This is usually the machined part of a tool, sharpened or cutting. |
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| Bolster | Another name for a cold chisel. The term is often used by mechanics. |
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| Bulb end | The shape of the end of a wooden or fibreglass handle as it feels to the hand. The bulb end is slightly swollen to increase the handle’s diameter and give a better grip. |
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| Bulge | When you remove shuttering into which you have poured concrete, there is always an excess of concrete where two planks or panels join: this is a bulge. |
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| Chrome manganese silicon steel | This is a type of steel which is particularly resistant to wear and abrasion: it is more expensive and more difficult to work but it does give tools an exceptional quality. |
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| Claw | This is the "tip of an animal's foot". By analogy, a claw is used to define any tool that ends with a sharp, flat tip: claw bar, nail claw,, etc...
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| Compositube | A Leborgne registered trademark for the family of hollow fibreglass handles specially designed for spades, forks and hoe-forks. |
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| Conical socket | A system of putting a handle on a tool blade by forcing the it into the socket by inserting it from the other side and running it along the whole length of the handle until it locks in the cone. There is no need to use a nail or screw, as the blade cannot escape from the handle. It can however come loose and slip along the handle if the wood dries out. For this reason it is recommended that you often tap this tool on the ground to re-secure the blade. In the old days people would keep their tools in a bucket of water for 12 hours before using them, so as to swell the wood. Fitting a fibreglass handle removes all of these risks, since this material does not dry out. |
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| Cranked | Said of a scythe or rip hook to describe the fact that the handle is not in the same plane as the blade. The hand is kept away from the ground but the same tool cannot be used by left and right-handed people. |
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| Cruciform | In the shape of a cross: if you cut through a Batipro bricklayer’s spike, you would notice that the working end is in the shape of a cross. This allows the tool to be self-sharpening. |
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| Curved or turned T-handle | Wooden or fibreglass handles on spades and forks often have a T-piece at the end of the handle which helps in the manipulation of the tool. This handle or T can take various forms, said to be curved or turned. These two forms are very similar but according to where you live, you will find one form or the other. |
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| Cutting edge | A tool’s cutting edge is that part of it which has first contact with the soil when you use it. Usually, it is the part that needs to be sharpened or honed. |
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| Desiccation | The process of drying out: we use it to describe the fact that wooden handles spend their lives either drying out or re-humidifying according to the time of year and where they are kept. This variation means there is a risk that wooden handles might move in the tool socket. Fibreglass handles are not susceptible to drying out and do not move. |
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| Design | This is the quest for new shapes, suited to their function. For us it is also the right of every user to take pride in the tools he uses. |
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| Diamond point | Used for the point of a pick or bricklayer’s spike which has four small facets on its tip: it looks good, and is efficient and stronger than a rounded point. |
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| Edge | This is the part that cuts, the tool’s cutting edge. |
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| Elastomer | A synthetic rubber obtained by polymerisation: this type of materials will regain their original shape after bending. |
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| EPI | French abbreviation for “Personal Protective Equipment”: includes all products used to protect a tool’s user. These products have to comply to strict standards, to guarantee your safety. |
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| Ergonomics | This is the scientific study of working positions and the relationship between man and tool: the importance of design is more than ever a factor in the development of all new products. |
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| Essadon | “Small essade.” It is a type of draw hoe. We do not know the origin of this word and hope that a reader might be able to enlighten us as to its origins. |
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| Eucalyptus | A wood from cultivated forests, especially prevalent in Spain. The strength characteristics of this species are comparable with ash, perhaps even slightly better. This little-known wood is certainly better than its reputation suggests and is often found in tools of quality. |
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| Ferrule | The ferrule is the piece of rectangular wood into which the manufacturer fits the round, oval, straight or curved handle. |
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| Ferrule | See “tang and ferrule handles”. |
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| Flush socket | The term used when the conical handle is forced to the bottom of the socket without any allowance for pushing it in further. This type of fitting is possible with a fibreglass handle but it is more delicate when using wood because you must always leave a little bit of room for pushing the handle in further after drying. |
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| Forged | Forging is the manufacturing technique of shaping a piece of metal which has been heated to red hot. Actually, at 1200°C metal can be worked almost like modelling clay and you can give it the desired shape, close to that of the finished tool. A forged tool always has a good reputation because the technique allows the material to be thickest in the area subjected to the most stress. This tool will be of good quality if it is additionally heat treated to give it hardness. |
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| Fork | Characterises tools with several fine or coarse tines, but also tools with just two or three tines, as opposed to claws, spikes or tongues (e.g. clawed hoe and fork). |
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| Foussoir | A type of draw hoe. The name probably comes from Savoy dialect and someone who reads this will no doubt tell us the origin. |
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| Gas injection | A process which consists of injecting air into a piece of plastic during manufacture, in order to make it hollow and consequently lighter. This process is used in the manufacture of Compositube handles and Vmax shovels |
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| Gegot | A type of 3-pronged forked hoe for working soil. The name probably comes from the Savoy dialect. We hope a reader can tell us its origin. |
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| Glass fibre | Very fine glass strands which are a raw material in the manufacture of fibreglass components. |
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| Hayfork | Also called a pitchfork. A bale is a large quantity of hay, straw or other vegetation . Generally rectangular or round and used to facilitate the picking up and storing of plant material. A hayfork has few tines, so that it can be pushed in and withdrawn easily. |
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| Heat Treatment | Heat treatment is a special operation which helps to give a lot of hardness and solidity to a steel tool. Certain types of steel have the characteristic that they become very hard if they are heated to high temperature (850°) and then cooled quickly. A complementary process called “re-tempering” is carried out after the tempering to give the tool more resistance to bending. Heat treatment is expensive and is therefore restricted to quality tools. The reputation of a brand is often the only way to know if a tool has been heat treated, as this cannot easily be deduced from the tool’s appearance. |
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| Hexagonal | A profile having six angles and six sides. |
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| Honed | See “Sharpened” |
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| Hoyau | A small hoe with a curved blade. |
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| Maniplus | A Leborgne registered trademark: This is a materials handling spade in aluminium alloy and is very solid but light. |
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| Maul | Also called a “splitting axe”, this tool is used for splitting logs. |
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| "Monseigneur" Nail claw | The nail claw is a tool used for raising or extracting nails. It can also be used for forcing a door open. Known in French as the Pince Monseigneur, the term "Monseigneur" once used to mean a nobleman or important person for whom doors were held open... |
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| Mis-hit | When you strike with a sledge hammer or a maul on to metal and the handle makes contact instead of the head, we call this a “mis-hit”. If the handle is not fibreglass, this can lead to breakage... |
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| MSD | Abbreviation for “Musculo-Skeletal Disorders”, more commonly known as tendonitis. |
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| Nova | A Leborgne registered trademark for the very first bi-material fibreglass handles sold in Europe. |
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| Novagrip | A Leborgne registered trademark which includes all the tri-material handles with a grip for maximum safety. |
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| Novamax | A Leborgne registered trademark which includes the latest generation of tri-material handles offering the user maximum comfort in use. |
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| Octagonal | An eight-sided profile. |
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| Organic | From the Greek ‘organikos’ meaning an organ. In gardening the general meaning of this is 'respecting nature', that we make better use of what it gives us free of charge and think about the impact of our actions on future generations. |
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| "Pied-de-biche" Crowbar | This is an alternative name for the claw bar. This old term is used to describe a shape that ends with a slit, similar to the slit in the hoof of the deer. Several other items are known by the same name. |
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| Piochon | The name sometimes given to a “serfouette”. |
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| Point | This is the pointed part of a tool, as opposed to the splat or striking surface. |
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| Pointerolle | Another name for a bricklayer’s spike. |
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| Polyamide | A strong and efficient thermoplastic polymer, but sensitive to moisture. It can be reinforced with fibreglass. |
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| Polyethylene | A thermoplastic polymer that behaves well in the cold. |
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| Polymer | A molecule whose mass is the multiple of that of another called a monomer. In fact, this name describes a whole family of materials used in tool manufacture. These are thermoplastics, thermosetting plastics and elastomers of natural or synthetic origin. |
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| Polypropylene | A thermoplastic polymer that is more rigid than polyethylene and which has excellent fatigue properties and behaves well at temperature. It can be reinforced with fibreglass |
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| Pruning | The action of cutting a tree’s branches to re-size it, open it out or re-shape it. |
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| Pultruded | The heart of our fibreglass handles is a core of hundreds of glass fibres which are passed through a die together with a resin. This technique is called pultrusion and the result is said to be pultruded. |
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| Rabassiere | Comes from Rabasso in Provençal, which means “truffle hunter”. It is a type of draw hoe. |
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| Rotogrif | A Leborgne registered trademark: This tool works the soil without turning it over and without you having to bend. It is not a tool reserved for pensioners. Try it once and you will not be able to do without it. |
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| Rot-proof | That which cannot rot or degrade on contact with air or water. |
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| "Russian" Concretors' Nippers | The shape of the pincers used by the bricklayer is quite different from the one used by carpenters. We are not sure of the origins of its "Russian" name. |
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| Sape | Comes from the Latin “sappa” which means to destroy or sweep away. This tool is similar to a draw hoe. |
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| Scythe Ring | A device which allows you to fix a grass or brush scythe to its handle by clamping. There is one model for wooden handles and another for metal handles. This device allows you to take the scythe apart to beat and sharpen it. |
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| Self-sharpening | When a tool works, it wears and it must then be sharpened or honed: certain tools have a particular shape which avoids the necessity for sharpening so often. |
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| Sharpened | We also say “honed”: Certain manufacturers do not sharpen their tools or do so only poorly. This can mean long and difficult work for the user. It is best to choose tools marked “ready sharpened for use”. |
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| Sheet Metal | Describes a tool by contrasting it with “forged” tools: a sheet metal tool is made from a metal sheet of uniform thickness which is then shaped by bending, often using heat, to arrive at the final shape. The advantage is that it greatly simplifies manufacturing, but the disadvantage is that the thickness is the same throughout and does not allow you to reinforce those areas subject to greater stress, which forging allows you to do. Certain tools cannot be made of sheet metal (pickaxes, for example). A sheet metal tool may be subjected to heat treatment, which compensates in some ways for the lack of reinforcement. |
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| Shoulders | This is the name for the external parts of a tool blade, generally with rounded edges, that are situated just below the socket. When you look at a draw hoe face on, you can see the similarity with a man's shoulders. We often say in the trade that a tool has wide or narrow shoulders, or that they are uneven, sloping, pointed etc. |
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| Shuttering Tool | Used for taking apart curved wooden shuttering used to make an arch or sweep, the shuttering tool is ideally suited to this type of work. |
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| Silage | Method of preserving green forage which consists of pressing it and keeping it away from air under a tarpaulin or in a silo. Working with this product requires special tools. |
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| Socketed handle | A system of fitting a handle into the blade by forcing the handle into a socket: at the end of the handle there is a pointed conical section which is forced into the tool’s socket. This type of fitting is usually secured with a nail or a screw for wooden handles which have a tendency to shrink on drying out. We prefer using a screw because it allows you to re-position the handle if there is any play or to change it, if necessary. |
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| Splat | This is the wide, flat working part of a tool, as opposed to a spike, fork or tongue |
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| Stainless | This is a special metal which cannot oxidise (rust). Its use in tools is limited because its strength characteristics are inferior to those of hardened steel. |
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| Striking Surface | This is the part of a hammer or sledge hammer which does the striking. |
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| Tang | See “tang and ferrule handles”. |
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| Tang and ferrule handles | A special type of fitting between the tool blade and the handle: the end of the wooden handle has a hole into which the tool’s tang (solid metal pointed end of the blade) is forced. To avoid the handle splitting under pressure a long metal ring (the ferrule) is fitted around the wood and fits perfectly to the shape of the handle. This type of fitting looks good and rarely comes apart. It is, however, almost impossible for a user to do himself when he wants to change a handle. We do not advise it and prefer socketed handles. They do not look as pleasing but they are much easier to fit. |
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| Tauari | TAUARI: a south American wood with uniform grain and little cross-grain and which does not distort. |
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| Tempered | Used to describe a tool that has undergone heat treatment to improve its performance. |
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| Texture | This is the arrangement of the material and the pores on the surface of a solid part. We use this term especially to talk about the surface of a handle and more particularly the place where you put your hands. By playing with different textures we can modify how the hand grips the handle. |
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| Tongue | This is the part of a serfouette hoe which rather resembles a laurel leaf, as opposed to the claw or fork part. |
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| Touch | Touch is one of the five senses, corresponding to skin sensitivity, used in the exploration of objects by feeling them. We use the term to describe what we feel when we hold a tool or handle in our hand. This first contact is very important and can be the determining factor in the choice of a tool. |
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| TP | French abbreviation for “Public Works”. |
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| Triandine | Another name for a digging fork in French |
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| Tri-material | See “Bi-material”. |
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| Valet | On a French tool called a bricklayer’s draw-bore, this is the name given to the metal piece which runs on the spike. |
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| Vibrations | Oscillation of a part of the tool caused by its use. The most common vibrations are those that a user feels when using a hammer or sledge hammer. Vibrations are, in general, difficult to tolerate and provide the conditions for MSD. These vibrations can also, in certain cases, be heard: we say that the tool is “singing”. |
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| VRD | A French abbreviation. The term VRD covers all work pertaining to the creation and maintenance of roadways. |
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| Wedged handles | A special type of fitting between the tool blade and the handle: the handle is forced into the tool’s socket and then a wooden or plastic wedge is driven in to the end of the handle to compress the wood and prevent the handle from coming out. This style of handle is efficient and looks good. It is, however, difficult to replace this type of handle, when necessary. We advise you to take the tool blade with you to the shop to try it and check that the new handle fits perfectly in the socket. |
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| Welding | A technique used to make two pieces of metal into one solid piece with the object of making a tool. In our trade this word often means the opposite of “forged” because it allows tools to be made more economically (less investment), so usually with a lower quality. These welded tools are often not heat treated. But a well-made weld also allows you to make high quality tools which could not be made by forging. |
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| Wilting | The action of turning hay to dry it: this activity requires a special fork. |
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| Wire Edge | When you sharpen a blade, there is always a small burr of metal that remains attached to the cutting edge: this is the wire edge. It must be removed with a sharpening stone to obtain a perfect cutting edge. |
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| YD | Describes the shape of a handle found on certain tools. The shape of the handle reminds you of the letters Y and D superimposed on one another. This handle provides excellent control of the tool and is widespread in tools where the load is not always well balanced (shovel, fork and spade). |
