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Swapped to brass drift pins after a buddy showed me his busted knuckles
Been using steel drift pins for years in my shop outside Nashville. Watched a guy at the Southern Forge gathering split his hand open when a steel pin mushroomed and caught the hammer wrong. Switched to brass that same weekend and haven't looked back. Any of you guys ever deal with a steel pin that flared up bad on you?
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leor376d ago
Holy crap, mushroomed steel pins are NO joke! I saw a guy at a meetup a few years back who tried to pull one out with a pair of channel locks and it just shattered into three pieces. One of those pieces flew right past his ear, I bet he still thinks about that sound. People don't realize how explosive that flare up can get when you catch it just wrong. Brass is way safer for that reason alone, even if it wears out faster.
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skyler_craig6d ago
Yeah, that sound is seared into my brain just from hearing about it. I've got that 'explosive flare up' thing down to a science though - not from being good, but from being clumsy. One time I was trying to wiggle a stuck pin loose with a screwdriver and it shot out like a rocket, bounced off my fridge, hit my dog in the butt. He didn't speak to me for two days. So yeah, brass is forgiving, but steel will absolutely humble you in a split second. I'll take softer metal that I gotta replace over shrapnel near my ear any day.
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