Wooden handled shovels, mattocks and fire rakes are, well, stick coloured. Many of them even have green heads to further add to their camouflage. Unfortunately this means that from time to time we lose some. Of course no-one means to, but it is easy to move from one job to the next and grab a different tool. Those left, even a short way off the trail, can get missed at the end of day pack up.
Pink Paint
To make the handles stand out we spray them in a bright colour with rattle can paint. We paint the lower part of the handles where they don’t get held so the paint doesn’t rub off as quickly. However they do need re-painting every now again. If there are lots to do they can be laid out on the ground and sprayed in one pass, before being turned over to coat the other sides.
Stickers
To add a flash more colour and label the tools – not to mention reinforce our branding – we also add a sticker with our logo. These 50mm x 75mm stickers are waterproof and UV resistant and only cost $0.68 each (order of 100) from Australian company Stickeroo.
However, wooden handles are not the smoothest or best surface to attach stickers. To make sure they stay in place we add a couple of wraps of Crystal Clear Gorilla Tape, which is available from hardware stores. You can just about make out the tape if you look closely in the picture.
Count Them Out, Count Them In
Even with all of the above we still leave a few behind. As we are lucky enough to own a lot of tools it is hard to keep track of numbers. On our tool rack (a future blog post) we have recorded the number of each type of tool. At the end of the trail day if there are any missing we will know and will at least have an idea which area to look in.
