About 20 years ago I bought a full-size stainless steel spade (made by
Griffin). It hasn't had a great amount of use.

Today I was trying to dig up an old variegated Euonymus. Its roots were
somewhat entangled with those of a 30-years old Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
'Ellwoodii' (which was cut down on Friday). I got half the Euonymus
roots cut through, then using one of the Ellwoodii roots as a lever
point, pushed down as hard as I could on the spade. There was a loud
crack, and something gave. I thought the plastic handle of the spade
had broken, but it was fine. The Euonymus was still in the ground.
Pulling out the spade, I was amazed to find that the blade had split
horizontally about 3/4 of the way across, an inch or two below where it
became the shaft.

How could this happen? Stainless steel isn't brittle, and having
split, why didn't it split all the way across?

Anyone had a similar experience?

--

Jeff