I transferred three of my jeans from the washer to the dryer and set it for a 60 minute dry cycle. I heard a bunch of clanking so I opened the door, pulled the wad of three jeans out, felt and looked around (but did not check every jean/pocket individually) and found nothing amiss. Put the jeans back in the dryer and re-started it finding the clanking to be substantially subdued so I figured it was just the buttons clanking on the dryer drum.

Came back a couple hours later and the dryer had stopped at the 20 minute mark. Opened the door to find this:


The knife had opened then got driven into the plastic near the lint filter stopping the drum cold. The molded plastic in this location is very thick and I'm amazed at how deep the knife cut into the plastic.

I was able to turn the drum backward enough to take the pressure off but could not pull the knife from the plastic. Ended up having to use a hard rubber faced hammer to hammer it out. Figured the blade would be tweaked for sure given all the leveraging and hammering, but it is just fine.

I thought the electric motor or the dryer belt would be burnt up but the dryer still works fine. Must be some sort of switch or breaker that shuts it down in the event of a jammed drum I guess.

I will be checking all pockets in the future...