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Can you create a flat tyre with a nail file?

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Comments

  • Woll64Woll64
    Surely using explosives might be overdoing it perhaps.
  • snailmalesnailmale
    Nothing like making sure, Woll
  • DogloverDoglover
    I’m just adding to this thread, as I’m returning to the attempted puncturing of a tyre for my novel. I’m going to add a scene where she tries and fails to use the nail file as a funny scene.
  • LizyLizy
    I think you have to push in the valve somehow, not just plunge a nail file in like Brutus's dagger.
  • kadokado
    Doglover, perhaps it could be a cheap nail file and it just snaps in half. A few years ago I bought a cheap multi spanner for my mountain bike. First time I used it to higher my saddle, on a canal towpath, it broke in to two pieces.
  • DogloverDoglover
    Would jamming a pen in the valve work?
  • Baggy BooksBaggy Books
    Maybe one of those things people use to tap out letters on a smartphone?
  • LizLiz
    Why couldn't she just let it down? I love the way you think we'll know!
  • Baggy BooksBaggy Books
    How does someone do that, Liz? That's the question - how do you depress the valve with something you have with you.
  • LizLiz
    No, it isn't.

    Doglover: "as I’m returning to the attempted puncturing of a tyre for my novel. I’m going to add a scene where she tries and fails to use the nail file as a funny scene."

    Puncturing is different to letting the air out, letting air out takes ages and is far too dangerous to do surrupticiously. Unless you can turn the screw with a little spannery thing when it comes out faster, but just letting it out with a nail file or anything else would take AGES.

  • LizLiz
    (Had a mechanic boyfriend)
  • Baggy BooksBaggy Books
    Would jamming a pen in the valve work?
    Maybe one of those things people use to tap out letters on a smartphone?
  • DogloverDoglover
    Puncturing or letting the air out. I don't really know what is viable and believable. So jamming something in the valve might work? And it doesn't matter if it takes ages for her to do it. The whole point is that she does get caught - which then brings on more drama.
  • Tiny NellTiny Nell
    If it's now a funny scene, perhaps she could break a nail in the process and use the file to sort out that instead.
  • LizLiz
    It would be quite funny AND dramatic if it takes her ages AND she breaks a nail. But her nail file is stuck in the wheel.

    What a shame you can't try it out!
  • LizyLizy
    I think you have to push in the valve somehow, not just plunge a nail file in like Brutus's dagger.
  • LizLiz
    My very old metal nail file is long and thing at the end, just as the instrument described in 'how to let air out of tyres'.
  • DogloverDoglover
    Is it a criminal offence to do this if she gets caught?

    I want her to get caught by the hero, but I don't want him to call the police. However, it would seem logical that he would do that.
  • ClaudiaClaudia
    It probably is - but if could you write it so that he sees the funny side of her botched attempt - he might decide to let her off.
  • DogloverDoglover
    It probably is - but if could you write it so that he sees the funny side of her botched attempt - he might decide to let her off.
    Thanks, Claudia. I've decided to go with this for now.

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