Make a splint using some duct tape and spare thin wood parts (or grab a few branches from a tree). That will tide you over until you get tired of looking at an ugly broom and buy a new broom stick.
Gorilla glue it back together. Then gorilla glue a full length splint onto it. Then use several screws to screw the original handle to the splint. I once fixed a futon frame this way.
Well if he's going that far, may as well go get a lathe from market place, then find an appropriate hardwood block. He can lathe the block into a nice cylinder, making sure grain of the wood runs in the same direction (lengthwise). Then use the center drill action on the lathe to carve out the exact diameter of the broomstick. Then he can jam the broken pieces into it with some 3x strength wood glue.
It should hold until he wants to replace the broomstick in 20-30 years.
Just detach the broom head and get a pvc pipe of appropriate length and diameter. Cap the end that points toward you, gorilla glue the broom head onto the new stick/handle.
Detach and measure the broom head's 'socket' before you go to Home Depot.
My car snow brush head came off the handle the one day, I found that the screw had absolutely no threading and promptly lost the screw anyway. Easiest solution was taking a nail longer than the diameter of the handle, curving it into an L, inserting it and wrapping the thing in duct tape. Worked great!
I have a scar on my finger because a broom broke while I was using it. It snapped open, caught my finger and closed again. The bastard basically bit me.
That is the most ridiculous injury I have ever gotten.
This seems strange to me. Why isn't it easier to find trees than mine metal out of the ground? Unless we've just already mined so much metal it's easier to melt the old stuff and reform it, but even then that seems like a lot of energy use to melt it all and make sure it's actually pure or what not
For the same reason that this (and my) broom broke - manufacturers can use an extremely tiny amount of metal and still have a pretty sturdy handle. the problem is that same cheapness means they arent coating the metal well and eventually it rusts from the inside out.
Production cost and waste. Extruding aluminum or steel is extremely cheap going through all the steps to turn a tree into a board into a stave into a cylinder is costly and has pretty steep losses at every step.
A good one made of straight grained ash or something are fairly expensive, so they end up being made of low grade poplar or fir or something that's a lot easier to crack and split.
Wood also has to be finished or it'll degrade, and most of the coating chemicals that are cost effective and work worth a damn have been banned.
bend the rim where the broomstick broke outwards and snap off any sharp shards. cut a little bevel on the roundstick’s ends and the. insert the wood into the metal broomstick on both halves. than finish up with some gaffa tape so you can’t cut yourself on the metal edge.
depending on how tight of a fit the wood insert is in the metal tube you might need some screws too
Everything is defective now, and everyone will victim blame you, for brooming too hard. But a broom has always been built to withstand a strong brooming, until the 80s or so. Every penny has been shaved, ever corner cut. Instead of carbon in the steel, they use shit. They cut the amount of steel down to the absolute minimum to sell it to you before you break it in normal operation.
Don't let anyone blame you for this, it's a conspiracy of the manufacturers that shipped all of our jobs to slave labor factories overseas in a race to the bottom.
I once clipped my glass shower saloon door style screen with my foundation bottle. And it fucking EXPLODED there were glass fragments everywhere. Utterly bizarre
Tempered glass can be a time bomb just waiting to go off. If done perfectly, it's a glass that is very strong (possibly to the point of being able to take bullets) in one direction but incredibly fragile in others.
But it can also get manufacturing defects that can make thermal expansion randomly trigger that extreme fragility. I had a tempered glass TV stand just spontaneously explode on me some years ago.
There was a bump involved, so it could have been purely working as intended but you hit it in an unlucky way, or maybe it was a combination of the two where it should have survived that hit but a defect caused it to shatter instead.
I was once helping my aunt move some old shower doors made of tempered glass, and as I was leaning one against the wall, it shattered in my hands. It was bizarre holding a heavy glass door one second, and only a few shards the next.
This happened with me and tempered pinball table glass. I didnt even touch anything. One moment I'm holding it out in front of me, a fraction of a second later there were tens of thousands of little glass pebbles everywhere and I was standing there holding nothing. It was surreal.
Basic lever principle? Give me a broom, a place to stand, and I'll snap it in half kind of thing?
Essentially, broom end on the floor, one hand on the top, other in the middle, where it will snap.
Press down towards the floor with the hand in the middle, while holding the end of the broom with the other one preventing it from getting closer to the floor, and snap, you've got a bent or snapped broom handle, depending on what it's made of.
Or don't, if you don't want to ruin the broom.
Easy to do inadvertently if you apply too much force trying to rub off something stuck to the floor, if you're not careful not to press down towards the floor with the hand closest to the ground.
I think this is more metal fatigue due to time and use. This happens pretty routinely to metal handled shop brooms in my experience. I have done this with 2 or 3 of them.
In the normal use of these brooms you apply pressure from opposite directions constantly. This back and forth pressure eventually fatigues the metal.
lol I just meant that it snapped when I was doing normal force sweeping with no warning. It’s a metal handle, I wouldn’t have been surprised to bend it but it felt perfectly sturdy. I had been doing some more aggressive brooming prior though, you’re correct.
Why use a broom when you could use a leaf blower? I mean yeah, it's annoyingly loud, uses electric or fuel, can take even more time than a broom if you lack technique, and is probably extreme overkill, but when you want to get that garage floor cleaner than it's ever been -- including under the shelves -- leaf blower is the way to go.
I did use a leaf blower at the end but the salt required some initial mechanical persuasion.
I would have preferred to pressure wash and be done with it but I have no drain in my garage and I recently broke my floor squeegee (having bad luck with handles lately it seems lol).
Yup. Sometimes it just needs that overkill. The garage I used the leaf blower in belonged to a relative and hadn't been cleaned in well over a decade, and after I got done with all the heavy work of moving all the shelves and boxes around I didn't have much enthusiasm for the good sweep it really needed. Plus the leaf blower got all the cobwebs I couldn't reach under and around the shelves, win/win. There was a water softener but no hardened salt anywhere, fortunately.
I don't know if you've seen this kind of second handle, that's just an example (non-affiliate link), but for straight handled tools that also need force they're a back saver.
It takes technique. Handle it like a pressure washer, at a sharp angle to the ground but slightly lifted in the direction you want the air to go, and it moves dirt the same way. But on the whole it was not a serious suggestion, though I've done it when I just couldn't be bothered with sweeping a LOT of dirt.
71 Comments
tpihkal@lemmy.world · 81 pts · 126d
Well if you have any more sweeping to do, I'm sure you'll make short work of it.
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 126d
Still though, that broom manufacturer shorted him.
Sergio@piefed.social · 11 pts · 126d
That manufacturer needs to clean up their quality control. Get a handle on it! Make sweeping changes! The customer doesn't deserve the shaft.
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 126d
Nah, as usual the manufacturer and retailer will just sweep it under the rug.
Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 126d
Make a splint using some duct tape and spare thin wood parts (or grab a few branches from a tree). That will tide you over until you get tired of looking at an ugly broom and buy a new broom stick.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 126d
Gorilla glue it back together. Then gorilla glue a full length splint onto it. Then use several screws to screw the original handle to the splint. I once fixed a futon frame this way.
Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 126d
Well if he's going that far, may as well go get a lathe from market place, then find an appropriate hardwood block. He can lathe the block into a nice cylinder, making sure grain of the wood runs in the same direction (lengthwise). Then use the center drill action on the lathe to carve out the exact diameter of the broomstick. Then he can jam the broken pieces into it with some 3x strength wood glue.
It should hold until he wants to replace the broomstick in 20-30 years.
dontpanic@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 126d
Yes! How did you know I will use just about any excuse to buy new tools?
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 126d
That sounds more expensive though. But ideally yes.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 125d
get a lathe? get a lathe. well lah dih dah mr french man look who doesn't take the opportunity to make a rudimentary lathe at the drop of a hat
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 126d
Alternatively:
Just detach the broom head and get a pvc pipe of appropriate length and diameter. Cap the end that points toward you, gorilla glue the broom head onto the new stick/handle.
Detach and measure the broom head's 'socket' before you go to Home Depot.
SqueakySpider@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 126d
My car snow brush head came off the handle the one day, I found that the screw had absolutely no threading and promptly lost the screw anyway. Easiest solution was taking a nail longer than the diameter of the handle, curving it into an L, inserting it and wrapping the thing in duct tape. Worked great!
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 125d
you can stick a dowel inside the hollow bit, glue it in place. splint it from the inside.
that repair could last until you get a new broom
Evilschnuff@feddit.org · 19 pts · 126d
Another one bites the dust.
Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 126d
Owwwwwww
Slovene85@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 126d
I hope you're handling the situation well. Don't want you to fly off the handle.
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 126d
Careful, you don't want OP to bristle at that pun.
fracture@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 126d
what were you doing when it snapped in half?
prex@aussie.zone · 18 pts · 126d
I had to check this isn't the witchy memes comm.
dontpanic@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 126d
Just sweeping up all the dried up dirt and salt my car dragged in over winter, I wasn’t even angry cleaning neither!
arschflugkoerper@feddit.org · 14 pts · 125d
I have a scar on my finger because a broom broke while I was using it. It snapped open, caught my finger and closed again. The bastard basically bit me.
That is the most ridiculous injury I have ever gotten.
HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 125d
Fuck that sounds painfuuul!
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 126d
Agent641@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 125d
I miss Gordo and Tracy Stevens
kieron115@startrek.website · 13 pts · 126d
a short piece of pvc the right diameter works pretty well to repair it. ask me how i know lol. what was wrong with wood handles?
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 126d
I don't even need to look, metal handles are cheaper.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 126d
This seems strange to me. Why isn't it easier to find trees than mine metal out of the ground? Unless we've just already mined so much metal it's easier to melt the old stuff and reform it, but even then that seems like a lot of energy use to melt it all and make sure it's actually pure or what not
kieron115@startrek.website · 2 pts · 124d
For the same reason that this (and my) broom broke - manufacturers can use an extremely tiny amount of metal and still have a pretty sturdy handle. the problem is that same cheapness means they arent coating the metal well and eventually it rusts from the inside out.
Madison420@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 125d
Production cost and waste. Extruding aluminum or steel is extremely cheap going through all the steps to turn a tree into a board into a stave into a cylinder is costly and has pretty steep losses at every step.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 125d
A good one made of straight grained ash or something are fairly expensive, so they end up being made of low grade poplar or fir or something that's a lot easier to crack and split.
Wood also has to be finished or it'll degrade, and most of the coating chemicals that are cost effective and work worth a damn have been banned.
e8CArkcAuLE@piefed.social · 12 pts · 126d
do you have some piece of round stock wood? you could use that to fix the broom stick.
e8CArkcAuLE@piefed.social · 5 pts · 126d
bend the rim where the broomstick broke outwards and snap off any sharp shards. cut a little bevel on the roundstick’s ends and the. insert the wood into the metal broomstick on both halves. than finish up with some gaffa tape so you can’t cut yourself on the metal edge.
depending on how tight of a fit the wood insert is in the metal tube you might need some screws too
Zachariah@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 126d
You’re gonna need an even bigger broom to clean that up.
i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk · 10 pts · 126d
Trigger's broom.
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 126d
Everything is defective now, and everyone will victim blame you, for brooming too hard. But a broom has always been built to withstand a strong brooming, until the 80s or so. Every penny has been shaved, ever corner cut. Instead of carbon in the steel, they use shit. They cut the amount of steel down to the absolute minimum to sell it to you before you break it in normal operation.
Don't let anyone blame you for this, it's a conspiracy of the manufacturers that shipped all of our jobs to slave labor factories overseas in a race to the bottom.
Sergio@piefed.social · 9 pts · 126d
"So, what would you say are some of your weak points?"
"Sometimes I just broom a little too hard!"
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 126d
My enthusiasm for the job is sometimes more than the provided tools can handle.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 126d
This can also be said by workers who rage out and destroy equipment. Just a different kind of enthusiasm.
Grass@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 126d
The hollow metal broom sticks are all destined for this. It just takes a variable amount of time.
kamenlady@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 126d
Whatever you do: don't panic!
Iusedtobeanalien@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 125d
Broom handles and especially plastic mop handles are deliberately weak designs imposed on us by big handle
MashedTech@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 124d
I think the whole contraption is shoddy, built by BIG BROOM!
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 125d
If its not wooden, I'm not buying.
toynbee@piefed.social · 5 pts · 126d
You broomed too hard.
dontpanic@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 126d
Guilty
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 125d
well the physics behind it are part of the handle went one way and the other part went the other way.
the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 125d
Is that supposed to happen?
chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 124d
I'm sure you know this, but you can get a new handle without replacing the whole broom. The handle screws in.
MashedTech@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 124d
Just get a wooden handle. Or a wooden broom. Will last longer and pollute less
Agent641@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 125d
Now you can sweep around corners
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 126d
I've got the same broom. The handle on mine rusted completely through down by the yellow connection.
LadyButterfly@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 126d
I once clipped my glass shower saloon door style screen with my foundation bottle. And it fucking EXPLODED there were glass fragments everywhere. Utterly bizarre
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 126d
Tempered glass can be a time bomb just waiting to go off. If done perfectly, it's a glass that is very strong (possibly to the point of being able to take bullets) in one direction but incredibly fragile in others.
But it can also get manufacturing defects that can make thermal expansion randomly trigger that extreme fragility. I had a tempered glass TV stand just spontaneously explode on me some years ago.
There was a bump involved, so it could have been purely working as intended but you hit it in an unlucky way, or maybe it was a combination of the two where it should have survived that hit but a defect caused it to shatter instead.
LadyButterfly@reddthat.com · 0 pts · 126d
That's really interesting thanks
wirelesswire@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 126d
I was once helping my aunt move some old shower doors made of tempered glass, and as I was leaning one against the wall, it shattered in my hands. It was bizarre holding a heavy glass door one second, and only a few shards the next.
LadyButterfly@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 126d
I'm so glad it's not just me! It was so weird I wouldn't blame someone for not believing me
ripcord@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 126d
This happened with me and tempered pinball table glass. I didnt even touch anything. One moment I'm holding it out in front of me, a fraction of a second later there were tens of thousands of little glass pebbles everywhere and I was standing there holding nothing. It was surreal.
HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 125d
Power sweeping.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 126d
2broom2handle(s)
leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 126d
Basic lever principle? Give me a broom, a place to stand, and I'll snap it in half kind of thing?
Essentially, broom end on the floor, one hand on the top, other in the middle, where it will snap.
Press down towards the floor with the hand in the middle, while holding the end of the broom with the other one preventing it from getting closer to the floor, and snap, you've got a bent or snapped broom handle, depending on what it's made of.
Or don't, if you don't want to ruin the broom.
Easy to do inadvertently if you apply too much force trying to rub off something stuck to the floor, if you're not careful not to press down towards the floor with the hand closest to the ground.
The_v@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 126d
I think this is more metal fatigue due to time and use. This happens pretty routinely to metal handled shop brooms in my experience. I have done this with 2 or 3 of them.
In the normal use of these brooms you apply pressure from opposite directions constantly. This back and forth pressure eventually fatigues the metal.
Wooden handled ones tend to last longer.
dontpanic@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 126d
lol I just meant that it snapped when I was doing normal force sweeping with no warning. It’s a metal handle, I wouldn’t have been surprised to bend it but it felt perfectly sturdy. I had been doing some more aggressive brooming prior though, you’re correct.
Mpatch@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 126d
Fuck broom handles. Get a piece of emt or gas pipe 1/2 and screw the fuck in there.
P1k1e@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 126d
Welp better toss the whole thing
kandoh@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 121d
Your broom broke
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 125d
Why use a broom when you could use a leaf blower? I mean yeah, it's annoyingly loud, uses electric or fuel, can take even more time than a broom if you lack technique, and is probably extreme overkill, but when you want to get that garage floor cleaner than it's ever been -- including under the shelves -- leaf blower is the way to go.
dontpanic@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 125d
I did use a leaf blower at the end but the salt required some initial mechanical persuasion.
I would have preferred to pressure wash and be done with it but I have no drain in my garage and I recently broke my floor squeegee (having bad luck with handles lately it seems lol).
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 125d
Yup. Sometimes it just needs that overkill. The garage I used the leaf blower in belonged to a relative and hadn't been cleaned in well over a decade, and after I got done with all the heavy work of moving all the shelves and boxes around I didn't have much enthusiasm for the good sweep it really needed. Plus the leaf blower got all the cobwebs I couldn't reach under and around the shelves, win/win. There was a water softener but no hardened salt anywhere, fortunately.
I don't know if you've seen this kind of second handle, that's just an example (non-affiliate link), but for straight handled tools that also need force they're a back saver.
HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 125d
Wet/dry vac is a better option. A leaf blower is just going to blow dust (of who knows what) everywhere.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 125d
It takes technique. Handle it like a pressure washer, at a sharp angle to the ground but slightly lifted in the direction you want the air to go, and it moves dirt the same way. But on the whole it was not a serious suggestion, though I've done it when I just couldn't be bothered with sweeping a LOT of dirt.
HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 124d
Ah ok good to know.