Old Shovel - Back in Service

A couple of weeks ago I was walking along the edge of the Arkansas River here in Colorado and noticed a small flat piece of metal sticking out of the sand on the edge of the river.  Kicking it like any junk collector would do it produced the edge of a shovel blade.  I pulled it up out of the sand and here was what was once a pretty good shovel.  Very weathered and a broken wood handle all covered in mud and rust.  Threw it in the back of the truck and had a further look when I got home.  Took a wire brush to the metal and discovered it was a forged shovel. Further scraping revealed that it was made in England and had a name stamp "Union" on it. I had thought Union was an American Tool company but they likely had some of their

tools made overseas.  Thought it was worth putting back into service and had always thought it would be handy to have a shovel with a fairly short handle for some of those digs that make it down to the 6' plus category.  Had one of those last weekend chasing a badger with my good friend Burt and one of his terriers, Ripley in and after this thing.
Back to the shovel.  Cut the handle at 28".  Took some of the excess broken handle and put it to the belt sander and fashioned a "T" for the top of the handle.  Have yet to figure out exactly how I am going to attach this piece but am making a little progress.  Spent more time with the wire brush working on the blade and took the blade edge to the grinder for a bit of a tuneup.  Applied liberal amounts of boiled linseed oil to the wood handle.  For those of you who are not familiar with linseed oil, it is the miracle worker for both weathered wood and to stop rusting metal.  I highly recommend it.  I will make a followup post when the handle is put together and then hopefully show it being used in one of those badger digs soon.