That time I snapped a trowel handle mid-dig at a local site

Last August I was out at a dig near the old mill foundation in my town, scraping away at a test pit. The ground was hard as concrete from the drought, and I leaned in too hard on my trusty Marshalltown trowel. The wooden handle just cracked clean off, leaving me holding a bare tang with the blade still stuck in the dirt. I had to hike back to the truck and finish the afternoon using a paint scraper from my gear bag. Has anyone else had a favorite tool break at the worst possible moment?

3 comments

3 Comments

leo_carr1325d ago

Trusty Marshalltown trowel" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I've broken a few cheap tools that way but never had a decent handle crack on me, sounds like you might have been using a dry rotted one.

tessa39425d ago

Honestly, it's not that serious. A cracked handle isn't exactly the end of the world, you can just replace it or wrap it with some tape and keep going. People act like a broken tool is a sign of bad luck or something, but it's really just wear and tear. Tbh, I've had handles split on perfectly good tools before, sometimes it's just a bad batch or you caught it on a weird angle. Not everything has to be a big deal about quality, you know?

wesley8325d agoMost Upvoted

Whoa, hold on a second. I gotta push back on that a little. You're saying only cheap tools crack, but I've had a pretty pricey handle splinter on me before, and it wasn't from old age or dry rot. Sometimes a handle just has a hidden knot or a weak grain that you can't see from the outside. @tessa394 made a fair point about it just being wear and tear sometimes, and I think she's right. A good brand doesn't mean every single handle they make is invincible, especially if you whack it just right against concrete. Not saying Marshalltown is junk or anything, but let's not pretend good brands are perfect every single time.