Originally Posted by
tiger1964
...and guess what I am using? Curious about the nature and frequency of failures. I could replace it, but so far, no troubles.
The tops broke off, where you see the sand cast marks. I don't know how frequent it was. JB was convinced failure was imminent.
FWIW, I had used mine for years and 10s of thousands of miles and never broke it. But, I had sanded the rough sections smooth and polished the whole thing, because it seemed like sharp edges were a bad idea. I had no knowledge of what stress risers were at the time, but somehow I got the concept intuitively. I suspect that is why I never had problems. Also, I was really skinny as a teenager...
At the least I would keep a very close eye on it. Inspect with a magnifying lens. I'd seriously consider replacement. Even if there's only a 10% chance of problems, it's too much.