Blew out a brand new power trowel blade on day two in Columbus

Had a job last Friday on a big slab out in Columbus, about 12,000 square feet of interior warehouse floor. Got through the first day fine, no issues, but day two the center bolt on my new trowel blade just snapped clean off. That thing was fresh out of the box, cost me $85, and it left a divot about three feet long that took me forty minutes with a hand float to fix. I switched back to the older blades I had in the truck and finished up fine, but it made me wonder if the new batch is just thinner steel. Has anyone else had blades fail on the second pass like that, or did I just get a dud from a bad run?

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henry_hernandez1mo ago

The part about the center bolt snapping clean off on day two really hits home because I always figured a bolt failure was just bad luck or me over-torquing it. I used to run my blades a long time and blame myself whenever something broke, figured the steel was the same as it ever was and I just got careless. Then I had two blades in a row crack at the mount within a week of each other, different brands, and it made me start looking at batches instead of my own hands. Now I check the thickness on new blades with calipers before they ever touch a machine, because a few thousandths off at the hub is where they let go. That forty minutes with a hand float on a warehouse floor is brutal and I feel that pain. You probably didn't get a dud, you probably got whatever the new spec is and it's lighter than the old stuff.

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