My trowel snapped clean in half during a dig in Tucson last month

I was working on a site near the Santa Cruz River, carefully scraping back a layer of sediment. I put a little pressure on the edge of my Marshalltown trowel, and it just gave way. The blade snapped right at the neck. It was my main trowel, and I've had it for about 8 years. I had to borrow a spare from another grad student for the rest of the day, which threw off my whole rhythm. I know tools wear out, but I wasn't expecting a full break like that. I ended up ordering a new one online that night. Has anyone else had a trusted piece of field gear fail on them mid-project? What did you do to get by?

2 comments

2 Comments

jones.angela16d ago

Ouch, talk about a clean break-up.

the_ben16d ago

Man, that's brutal. A clean snap at the neck sounds like metal fatigue finally caught up with it. I'm curious, after eight years of use, what did the break surface look like? Was it all one color, or could you see different layers where it had been slowly giving way? That's the kind of failure that makes you inspect every other old tool in your kit.