Where to find gear?!

[Alan H]

Fork tastes seem to be a regional thing. The guys in the Pacific Northwest and some in So Cal take 5 tine manure forks, and remove the middle, and outer tines. Then they use a grinding wheel, a file and a LOT of emery paper to gradually taper and smooth the tines.

Home Depot and Orchard Supply carry these, they run about $35. This is what I have.

Guys in the south, midwest and Northeast seem to use the 3 tine forks like Mark suggests. The advantage to these is that they're not as much work to prep, and the thinner tines might release the bag just a tiny bit more easily than the thicker-tined manure forks. On the other hand, there are three tines in the bag, rather than two so I suspect that the extra tine makes up for the difference in friction between the thicker and thinner forks.

I think you can do just fine with either one. I'm used to the 5-tine/cut down because I did my first sheaf throwing in Washington, so that's just what I like. I prepped my fork much like how those guys do theirs. However, when I bring my fork to a local Nor Cal Games people usually opt for the SHA-supplied three-tine.

Either one is fine. Sheaf, however, seems to be an event where practice will buy you height, bigtime. You can practice your butt off on WOB and it will buy you another foot or eighteen inches. Practice sheaf, and it can buy you for or six feet pretty quickly.

Clevenger sheafs are really popular. I'm cheap, so I made my own from straw (got the straw from the University stables) and two burlap bags, sewed it up with cotton twisted twine. However, the straw bag is significantly less dense than a rope bag, which is what you'll see a lot of. Less dense means that the bag is physically bigger, which is a pain. However, a straw bag pops off the fork more easily, too. A Clevenger sheaf will cost you about $100. Merl Lawless also makes good bags, so I hear. You can make a rope bag yourself, too. Clevenger and lawless bags are not stuffed with straw, they're stuffed with untwisted nylon/polyester rope. The rope is cut into 12-18 inch long sections and mashed into the smallest bag, possible. Clevenger bags are incredibly dense, in fact they are SO dense that often it's very, very difficult to get the fork into the bag. One advantage to a synthetic rope bag is that they don't absorb water so much, so if you're practicing in the rain, the bag doesn't get outrageously heavy.

Straw and burlap is the cheapest way to go and they DO fly. I like mine. It took me about 2 hours to make it, and I'll be making a womens 10 pounder for Bethany to practice with. However, if you want to practice with something that's as similar to what you'll see at an actual Games, then you'll probably need to buy one.