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That $40 set of tiny plastic spudgers was my best and worst purchase this month

I bought them to gently pry open a Minolta X-700's top plate without scratching it, and they worked great until one snapped and shot a tiny plastic shard directly into the shutter mechanism. I spent the next two hours with tweezers and a headlamp fishing it out. Has anyone else had a tool fail in a spectacularly inconvenient way like that?
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3 Comments
emeryo58
emeryo5811d agoTop Commenter
Maybe the real tool failure was trusting a plastic spudger near a shutter.
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cora813
cora81311d agoMost Upvoted
My third spudger from that same set snapped off inside a Gameboy Advance last week. I felt like a bomb disposal tech trying to get the piece out without making it worse. At this point, the main tool failure is my own judgment for buying the cheap set, lmao. I guess the plastic just gets brittle.
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the_elizabeth
Cheap tools are a false economy every time. That plastic gets brittle faster than people realize. Honestly, the real failure is the material, not the user's choice. A good spudger should have some flex, not just snap under pressure.
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