That $12 IKEA furniture assembly tool snapped my shelf in half

I tried using their little L-shaped hex key on a bookshelf from the Renton store last Saturday and it twisted right off after the third screw. The shelf panel cracked and split before I even got halfway through the instructions. Has anyone else had that cheap metal strip ruin a project or am I just too heavy-handed?

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alice_reed471mo ago

That thing about the L-shaped hex key snapping after three screws... yeah, that's exactly what happened to me with a coffee table from the same store last year. But honestly, I think this is part of a bigger pattern where companies make tools and furniture that are just barely good enough to work once, if you're lucky. It's like they count on you either being super gentle or giving up and buying another shelf. I noticed this same cheapness with my car's plastic oil drain plug that stripped on the second change, and even with those flimsy zippers on cheap jackets that break after a few wears. It's like everything is designed to fail just after you commit to it, so you're stuck replacing the whole thing instead of just fixing it. That shelf crack is probably more about the material being too thin and brittle than about you being heavy handed.