That cheap brush tricked you good. Bristles that stiff should come with a warning label. Learned my lesson with dollar store stylus pens that felt like dragging a rock across glass.

Read somewhere soap is fine now as long as you oil the pan after.

Picked up a cheap hickory replacement handle from a hardware store and sanded it down to match the shape of my old one. Took about an hour with some medium grit paper and a coat of linseed oil. Let it dry overnight and it felt almost like the original in my hand. That split handle taught me to keep a backup trowel with a rubber handle in my kit for wet days.

Stick with the built-in one a bit longer, @eva_thompson - there is a small learning curve but once you get the hang of it, it really does make those messy conflicts a lot less painful.

Man that stinks @carter.casey, I feel your pain on the clogging issue, especially since @lunag30 mentioned filters helping. What kind of soil do you have that made regular hose watering work better?