Spent the morning on maintenance instead of making anything.

The 9 inch angle grinder started screaming at me last week, that high whine that means brushes. Took the whole thing apart, cleaned out about a cup of limestone dust that had turned to paste in there, blew out the windings, new set of brushes. Runs right again. Took two hours.

People who don't do this think the work is the chisel hitting the stone. Most of it is this. Sharpening, oiling, chasing down vibration, fixing what the dust eats. My dust collector filter is shot too, that's the afternoon gone.

I don't mind it. Half the reason I still do this by hand is I know every part of the machine that way. When something's off I hear it before I see it.

But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking at the block the whole time.