Got a piece of basalt I've been working for weeks. Nice stone, dense, good color. Had the form mostly there. One more pass with the point chisel to clean up the belly and a crack ran clean through it. Not a clean break either. The kind that leaves a fault line you can't grind out because you'd lose half the piece.

Thing is I saw the vein three days ago and told myself it would hold. Knew better. Just didn't want to start over on a new block.

Nothing to do with the stone. That's on me. You push when you should stop and set up. Twenty-five year old me would have caught it. Sixty-one year old me got impatient.