Busted screw

So I wanted to put a dryer on the wall, well, my wife did. So I got some long screws with biggish hex heads, screwed some timber to the wall and hung the dryer on that, according to the manufacturer's instructions. Screwing the timber to the wall proved tiresome, because the head of the screw snapped off, leaving this:

How inconvenient that the weakest point of a screw would be the head. It was most of the way in too. Happily, the bit of timber in question was to keep the dryer away from the wall, not hold it up. So I left it there. "Rust in peace" I said. Well, I should have. The rust is, I'm almost certain, post-failure.

I can imagine that it would suck to be the person who wanted to get those bits of timber off. I wouldn't be at all surprised if one of the other screws went the same way when the time came to get them out. I don't think the dryer's going anywhere, though, which is all I care about for the time being.

Broken spokes

I cycle a bit, so I've broken a few spokes. They way it usually works is either:

I'm riding along, a spoke breaks and I realise it right away; or
I'm riding along, a spoke breaks and the bike gets noisy or hard to ride because the wheel is now rubbing on the brakes; or
I'm riding along, a spoke breaks and only when I stop do I realise it.

These things have happened in some interesting places. When I cycle toured, I took this shifter with me just in case. It worked a bit better back in them days. A couple of times I was right glad of it when I broke a spoke 100k from the nearest bike shop.

Up until recently, breaking spokes involved actually riding the bike. But I have had spoke break just sitting there in the shed. I leave the bike for a while (years in some cases), come back and oops, there's a broken spoke.

What's odd is that these spokes break partway along their length, rather than at either end, which is usual for riding-induced breakages. I don't know what to make of this. I suppose I could take some photos, but I'm not too cocky about the fine detail showing up.

Now that I think about it, it was trying to get the freewheel off to replace these spokes that did my shifter in.

Busted spoon

It beats me what this is all about. We bought some spoons and by-and-by they, without any apparent provocation, ended up like this:

The fine hairline things are actually cracks in the spooning part of the spoon. One of them is a bit more obvious from the back:

Fair enough, we ate food with them and washed them afterwards, but I've used a few spoons in my life with one thing and another, and I've never seen this before. It's just wierd.

Busted shifter

So there I was trying to take a freewheel off a bike wheel. My favoured tool for this is a big shifter. So I grab this 250mm shifter and start grunting and gritting my teeth and trying to undo it. There's this creak and a sort of pinging sound and something gives way. I didn't expect it to be one of the jaws of the shifter, particularly not the fixed one. The jaw flew away into the shed somewhere. I haven't bothered looking for it. Something tells me this can't be easily fixed.

From this dark spot

I'm guessing there was a hidden flaw there. It's a shame really, the padded handle was good for pushing really hard when undoing stubborn things. Thinking about it, this may have hastened its demise.

About

This is a blog about steel things that have failed in interesting or amusing ways. It's kind-of inspired by http://www.bustedcarbon.com/

There is no point to this, except that steel things sometimes fail. I do not think this is surprising or controversial. I suppose this might form part of the endless (and pointless) carbon-fibre v steel debate, particularly if you're in the market for spoons or shifters made from carbon fibre. If you, the reader, have come across steel things that have failed in interesting or amusing ways, I'd be happy to hear from you.