Portable, two‐stage sampler for “difficult” soils

A lightweight hand‐sampler is described for taking uncompacted cores up to 1.5 m long and 49 by 49 mm in section. Cores were successfully taken from tilled gravelly brown earths or had intact unshattered earthworm tunnels even in samples with a high clay content. The sampler comprises two halves, two lengths of light, high quality angle‐steel (2 m long × 50 mm wide). The two half‐lengths are inserted separately into the soil. Tips are acutely pointed and sharpened with the chamfer to the outside. These cutting edges are constricted internally to give relief to the core. Steel caps are welded to the top of each half‐length to receive hammer blows. The first half‐length to be driven into the soil has a cube of hardwood fixed at the upper end and another is positioned just above the soil surface. These serve as alignment bearings for the second half‐length. It is positioned tightly against the first half‐length and driven until the steel caps just touch and overlap. The entire sampler and soil core are then withdrawn using a lever, the tip of which keys sequentially into a series of holes bored along the first half‐length. A short steel tube attached horizontally across a piece of heavy marine‐plywood provides a fulcrum for the lever.