For about a year I've been running my grinder off of a 3hp tefc motor, and the thing has never been a stellar piece of gear, but still a big step up from a single hp motor. It seemed to do pretty well at first, but quickly it became apparent that something was buggered. The start capacitor never worked properly, and while hand starting isn't much of a big deal, fanning the belt for thirty seconds became the norm. Then an extended warm up period where it wouldn't turn at full speed, then the recovery periods became longer and longer and longer....so I decided to blow it out. Take one end off, blowgun on the compressor, psst psst, a quick job, the coil looked like it had been way too hot at some point, there was a little bit of plastic melt.
This motor had sat for many years, but was apparently never used, it had been part of an industrial dust collector. I plugged it back in and it started doing the same slow start up that it always has, and just as I'm lamenting having bothered even pulling it off the mounts, there's a poof noise and a puff of smoke. A little digging after everything cooled down revealed that the side mounted start capacitor blew up, and shot a load of hot plastic into the motor casing. So that's that.
For a reasonable price I found a new motor later that day, it should arrive Thursday or Friday, in the meantime I've been doing my round to it jobs, change the oil in the car, tidy the basement, etc....and I've decided to pump out a bunch of handles and get a leg up on things for when I can get back to work on blades. Here they are, drilled and tapered, next comes the faceting, they'll all be burned after as they're all red oak.