Broken Breaker bars

[johnsironsanctuary]

My son tells me that his friend has now broken his 3rd Matco 1/2"  Breaker Bar, and was wondering if anyone on tool talk has the "Indestructible solution"?

[lauver]

JIS,

To my knowledge, the Matco breaker bars are solid, well made, and have a good record.  I stongly suspect a "user issue" in this particular case.

I'm guessing that your sons friend is using the wrong size breaker bar for whatever it is he is working on.  He probably needs to invest in a good 3/4" drive bar and impact sockets.  The weak link on any breaker bar is the drive bit and yoke assembly, not the handle. 

[scottg]

My son tells me that his friend has now broken his 3rd Matco 1/2"  Breaker Bar

 He going to have stop putting three big sailors at the end of a 12foot cheater pipe! heehehehe
    Seriously, anyone can break any tool. Just because you can pull on something with all your strength doesn't mean you should. Or as the saying goes ...
 "I know a guy who can break a bearing ball".
   Skill comes in -not- breaking tools!  Experience will teach when a different tool is called for.
 Finish the job and everyone gets out alive.

    They make 1 1/2" drive breaker bars, you know. 
   yours Scott
 

[Lewill2]

Pipe cheaters do amazing things, been there done that on front spindle nuts until I moved up to 3/4 drive for that project..........

[Dakota Woodworker]

My son and his friend returned my  Cman 1/2" breaker bar to sears for replacement twice in one night.  The salesman finally told them to stop using a four foot cheater on it and buy a bigger tool.  I learned of this incident much later by the way.

[rusty]

Ditto, there are marginally stronger bars than the Matco, but he will break those as well.
Time for a 3/4 drive bar and the socket to go with it (NOT a 3/4 to 1/2 adapter), the actual correct socket -P

Impact tools may be worth investigating as well ;P

[johnsironsanctuary]

Here is my son's message to me tonight after I sent him the first four replies to my OP and my response.

Dad,
Matt's post attached to the pic: "1/2 inch drive breaker bar. 3rd one I've broken. No pipe or extender. Wtf."

Dan,
If he did not over stress the tool, then I would suspect hydrogen embrittlement. When heat treated steel is plated after heat treat, there is a perscribed amount of time that the part must be baked to drive out the hydrogen . It is a relatively low temp like 400F or lower. I don't remember exactly. If you don't do it, the hydrogen remains in the grain boundaries and the steel, especially high alloys, becomes very brittle. A competent metalurgist can tell you with a visual inspection. My guess is that all three broken tools were from the same manufacturing lot and have the same problem. If my guess is right, there are more bad tools where that one came from.

[rusty]

That is not what hydrogen embrittlement is about.

Besides, simple drop forged tools are generally quench hardened, not heat treated, it's cheaper.

However, I see something interesting in the fractured steel, it is partly rusted at one fracture point, so it was cracked *before* it broke. I suppose it is possible it was fractured during manufacture when the pin was driven in...

Or it was over stressed at some point before the time it was broken..hard to guess history..

The ends of those bars are *very* hard , so they don't bend, they are always somewhat brittle, that is a necessary consequence of making them that hard. I have a snap-on bar that is broken in exactly the same place. I broke it with a 8 foor pipe,,,,,

[johnsironsanctuary]

Apologies Rusty, I misspoke. They probably are quench hardened, not heat treated. Why heat it twice. The problem, IMHO, happened after plating. I have seen it happen before. I'll see if I can find out what the discoloration is about.

[Branson]

That discoloration means a flaw, no two ways about it.  Three broken in a row looks, now, like a manufacturing problem, with more bad tools out there, waiting to break.

[scottg]

 Many, in fact most, modern tools are air hardening. The last thing in the world you want to do is quench them. And I have screwed that up before to prove it. 8^)
 Quenching air hardened steel makes it glass.
 One swat against anything hard, and its gone.

  This tool was obviously cracked during manufacture.
 Since it has happened more than once, I would write to the CEO of Matco and let them know.
 Be polite, but let them know there are products in circulation making them look bad.
If you take a "I am a huge fan and depend on your products, so lets to work to make this better" attitude?
 You may just get more than a replacement breaker for your trouble.

 One time Western Family (generic store brand but actually surprisingly good quality most times) had  a bad run of toilet paper that went on for 3 months.      Somebody asleep at the switch.
 I didn't want to change brands. I liked it and its always cheapest for the quality.
 So I got the corporate address of the chairman of the board and wrote a letter.  Respectful but definitely needing to get this fixed.  I explained what I thought was the likely problem on the factory floor was, and that he absolutely needed to get someone down there to check it out.
  I didn't hear anything back, but the next shipment of TP to my local grocery was right as rain, and "on sale" at a 30% discount!
  I was  already happy right there.
 
    A month later the UPS truck pulls up. He gets out 2 boxes the size of washing machines!
Inside was some of every paper product Western Family makes. Large packages of each and even the inbetween spaces were packed in loose paper napkins.
 And a thank you.
      yours Scott