melting rubber handle?

[tylerae40]

g'day to all
My question is have any of you had the rubber handles on tools melt?- I'll give you the background-
I work on a minesite in north west Australia, so i only have a few select tools in a bag and i'm 1000km from home and the nearest city is 600km away (so no tool store nearby to go to). Anyway a few months ago i bought a new sidchrome (top quality aus brand) 3/8 swivel head ratchet (possibly off ebay?), I used it at home for a while then chucked it into my work bag, It was good and basically new. it sat in the bag for a few months unused. I took it out to find that the rubber part on the plastic handle had melted and gone soft. It smears on your hands when touched almost like a kids crayon, and it smells like a crayon too. It hasen't had any chemicals on it and my three rubber handled screwdrivers of another brand are fine. I almost wondered about the heat up here- normally about 40'c and higher at times- up to 50'c (no i'm not joking!) had affected it? any ideas?

cheers tyler

-- oh and when i went to use it the handle slid off- **** glue too.

 

[Hank McMauser]

I'd say that's a candidate for a hard handle. I'm sure someone will be along in a lil bit & have a link, but therres info around here on how to remove a screwdriver handle of the type you prefer and inserting it on your ratchet.
I'll see if I can find it for in the meantime.
found it
http://garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68114&page=3+

if you try a search in the general tool discussion, put in "ratchet handle" you may have to sift thru a bunch of unrelated stuff but I saw a couple discussions of the same info in the first 4 or 5 pages.

I've never personnaly had anything melt, but I have seen some very soft rubber handles on imported(China) screwdrivers while sifting through the junk bins at the local used tool getting place

 

[briggsguy17]

Wonder if the person you bought it from used solvent on the handle? Looks like chemical damage to me.

 

[trexdoink]

Some chemical solvents like MEK and acetone melt them pretty good. Hard to believe the heat did it if they are sticky when not at 50C. Find a woodworker and make a cool wooden handle on a lathe.