[bhaak]

Wringing doesn't work because of cold welding but apparently some gauge blocks are also subject to cold welding.

The German wikipedia article claims that you shouldn't let gauge blocks stick together for longer than 8 hours at a time as they are prone to cold welding.

[hwillis]

That's likely a myth. Even in space, cold welding doesn't happen under static loading: http://esmat.esa.int/Publications/Published_papers/STM-279.p...

It requires impact of fretting, and even then there's a lot of debate over whether it's really cold welding or just more normal galling etc.