The chisel that split clean in half after 8 years of daily use

I was trimming a door jamb in a house from the 1920s over in Oak Park last week, and my old 3/4 inch chisel just snapped right at the tang. I've used that thing every workday since I started my business in 2017, never even thought to inspect it closely. I've heard about steel fatigue but never thought it'd hit me mid-cut. Ended up borrowing the homeowner's rusty one to finish the job, which was humbling. Anyone else had a favorite tool fail out of nowhere and have to rethink their backup plan?

1 comments

1 Comment

phoenix2919d agoMost Upvoted

Eight years of daily use and it just gave up mid cut? Man, that is brutal. I would have been staring at the broken handle for a solid five minutes in disbelief before I even thought about what to do next. Borrowing the homeowners rusty chisel to finish the job sounds like a humbling moment I can almost feel in my own hands. Hopefully that old steel did you proud for all those years, cause that kind of luck is hard to replace.