Just realized I should've picked the trowel over the brush for that delicate feature yesterday.

I was clearing a small Roman floor mosaic in York and had to choose between gently brushing away the dirt or carefully troweling the compacted layer around the edges, and my choice to trowel first ended up chipping a tiny piece of the border before I switched tools, so has anyone else messed up by using the wrong tool on a fragile find?

3 comments

3 Comments

murphy.barbara12d ago

Ugh, that's rough... honestly though, sometimes the trowel is the right call even if it feels risky. That compacted stuff can be worse than it looks.

webb.dakota12d ago

My buddy's trowel snapped clean in half on some hardpan last spring. He was picking bits out of the dirt for a week.

verar212d ago

Read an article once that said most tool damage happens from rushing the choice. Taking that extra minute to really look at the material can save a lot of heartache later. It's easy to just grab what worked last time.