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My trowel snapped during a dig in New Mexico last week... | Archaeology Discoveries - Librear

My trowel snapped during a dig in New Mexico last week...

Was working on a site near Santa Fe, carefully brushing away some sediment around what looked like a half-exposed pot sherd when my Marshalltown trowel just cracked right at the handle joint. Been using that thing for almost 7 years since field school in 2018. Had to borrow a beat-up backup from the site supervisor for the rest of the afternoon. Anyone else had a favorite tool fail on them at the worst possible moment?

2 comments

2 Comments

david_adams4mo ago

Used to think tools were just tools you know, that you could swap em out and it wouldn't matter. But that Marshalltown trowel you mentioned hit a nerve. Had a similar thing happen with my favorite Estwing rock hammer on a site in Colorado. Thats head flew right off after 5 years and I spent the rest of the afternoon just feeling off balance, like I lost a part of my hand. Really changed my view on how attached you get to the specific weight and feel of a worn in tool. Now I get why old timers get so particular about their gear.

patricia_rodriguez4mo ago

Oh man @david_adams, your story about the Estwing hammer just reminded me of something my buddy Tom went through. He was a mason for like fifteen years and had this old wooden handled trowel his grandpa gave him. The handle was all smooth and worn down to fit his hand perfect, like a glove. One day he was working on this big brick wall and the head just snapped clean off at the tang. He spent the next hour trying to fix it with tape and glue before he finally gave up and grabbed a spare. But he said nothing felt right for the rest of the week, the balance was all off and he kept dropping his mud because his grip was used to that old wood shape. He actually ended up driving two hours to a specialty tool place to find someone who could rehandle it with a new piece of wood shaped just like the old one. That experience really opened my eyes too about how a tool becomes an extension of you after years of use.