The Power of the Screw

Recently we attended a large garage sale at a high school.  The sale consisted of mostly furniture, clothing, and electronics.  However, under one of the tables we noticed an unusual piece of equipment.  It had a wooden handle and looked like it belonged on a farm, so we picked it up and examined it.  We finally realized that it was basically a large screw that, when placed vertically on the ground and turned with the wooden handle, would dig a hole.
This intrigued us, because we were planning to build a fence and needed to dig about 25 holes for the fence posts.  We have a post hole digger, but it is awkward and difficult to use in hard clay soil.  We had also contemplated buying an auger to use with our tractor, but that tool is quite expensive.  So we decided to take a chance on this antique, or at least very old, farmtool, helping the school and hoping to help us with the fence.

We were quite excited to find that our garage sale discovery did an excellent job of digging the holes that we needed, and, as an additional benefit, it was fairly easy to use.

Two Post Hole Diggers

Design of the Screw