Smooth, polish, and bevel surfaces, using hand tools and power tools.

“Smooth, polish, and bevel surfaces, using hand tools and power tools.” is a core task performed by Stonemasons. Among the occupation's 17 rated tasks, workers place it 9th by importance (#9 most important). About 93% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Cut materials. in Handling and Moving Objects
• Smooth surfaces of objects or equipment. in Handling and Moving Objects

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Set vertical and horizontal alignment of structures, using plumb bob, gauge line, and level. · importance 4.6
• Lay out wall patterns or foundations, using straight edge, rule, or staked lines. · importance 4.5
• Set stone or marble in place, according to layout or pattern. · importance 4.5
• Remove wedges, fill joints between stones, finish joints between stones, using a trowel, and smooth the mortar to an attractive finish, using a tuck pointer. · importance 4.2
• Clean excess mortar or grout from surface of marble, stone, or monument, using sponge, brush, water, or acid. · importance 4.2
• Shape, trim, face and cut marble or stone preparatory to setting, using power saws, cutting equipment, and hand tools. · importance 4.1
• Mix mortar or grout and pour or spread mortar or grout on marble slabs, stone, or foundation. · importance 4.0
• Construct and install prefabricated masonry units. · importance 4.0
• Lay brick to build shells of chimneys and smokestacks or to line or reline industrial furnaces, kilns, boilers and similar installations. · importance 3.8
• Replace broken or missing masonry units in walls or floors. · importance 3.7
• Remove sections of monument from truck bed, and guide stone onto foundation, using skids, hoist, or truck crane. · importance 3.7
• Drill holes in marble or ornamental stone and anchor brackets in holes. · importance 3.7
• Dig trench for foundation of monument, using pick and shovel. · importance 3.5
• Repair cracked or chipped areas of stone or marble, using blowtorch and mastic, and remove rough or defective spots from concrete, using power grinder or chisel and hammer. · importance 3.4

See all tasks on the Stonemasons page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-8775,
  title  = {Smooth, polish, and bevel surfaces, using hand tools and power tools.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-8775}
}