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My power trowel died halfway through a 40 yard slab yesterday

It was a hot afternoon on a residential job in Mesa, and we were just starting the final pass. The motor on my 36 inch Whiteman just sputtered and quit, no warning. I had to finish the last quarter by hand with a steel float while my partner ran to get a rental. It added nearly two hours to the day. Anyone have a brand of power trowel they've found to be really reliable under heavy use?
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4 Comments
fiona749
fiona7493mo ago
Remember my old mixer seizing up right before a big pour.
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zaranelson
zaranelson3mo ago
My KitchenAid Pro 600 gave out during a double batch of buttercream last Christmas. The motor just made this awful humming noise and locked up solid. I had to finish the whole thing by hand with a whisk, my arm was sore for two days. That feeling of panic when you're on a deadline and your main tool just quits is the worst.
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spencerross
It's crazy how our whole day depends on these machines working right. You can have the best plan, but a cheap part fails and everything stops. Modern life feels pretty fragile when a single tool can wreck your schedule.
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kevin_williams
kevin_williams18d agoTop Commenter
My grandpa had a 1960s hand drill that still works, and it makes you think about how stuff used to be built. Now we got all these machines with plastic gears and circuit boards that die the second a warranty expires. It's not just the tool failing, it's the whole system being set up so you have to buy new parts you can't even fix yourself. You see this everywhere now, from phones to cars to dishwashers, everything designed to be thrown away instead of repaired. Feels like we traded reliability for convenience and lost something along the way.
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