Shop Rant, missing tool

[yellowcanoe]

Yes, I'm there. The #1 culprit for missing tools is my wife

Ahem..
That is NOT a problem here. The workshop is so messy I cannot even start to find a desired tool.
There is a corollary: He gets his knuckles rapped if he uses my kitchen screwdriver and hammer and tape. Its MINE! And I have no intention of risking them winding up in the woodshop mayhem

 

[Guest]

Generally, I can't find seldom used power tools. After searching the small work room and the entire garage, I move on to my sons' garages. BINGO!!! Son says, "That's not yours Dad. I've had that for 2 years." I says, "Yes you probably have had it that long, that's how long it's been since I needed it."

A friend was infamous for borrowing tools, and keeping them long enough that I forgot. Fortunately most of my tools are marked, either with bright yellow tape or an MM in enamel paint pen.

Fortunately as well I house sat for him once a year. I would go down in his basement workshop and gather what was mine to take home.

The best of those was a 43 range electrical tester. I did not have my initials or yellow tape on that, but it was still in the original OEM blister pack, with a hole punch from where it once hung rarely used on my pegboard, and I remembered loaning it to him a few years back.

Home it went. When I checked it at home the battery was dead. When I went to replace the battery I found that he had put a label with his name inside the battery case.

Seriously Dave? I think not!

 

[yellowcanoe]

Dougd.
How would a tool set for DW sit with her as a holiday present?

 

[Grandpa Paddler]

. Fortunately most of my tools are marked, either with bright yellow tape or an MM in enamel paint pen.
!

Both sons share my monogram (JDM) Maybe I'll start marking tools as DAD'S

 

[dougd]

Dougd.
How would a tool set for DW sit with her as a holiday present?

YC, She has her own set now, she took care of it after I started getting her tools for her birthday and other holidays. I even bought her her own power drill! Yeah, I know, ever the romantic! ;-)

 

[sweeper]

Women with their Power Drills! Next, they'll be leaving the kitchen, not doing the laundry, and finding out about the joys of the workshop. They'll be tidying up our workshop, curtains in the windows, stop, STOP!!!!

 

[yellowcanoe]

Women with their Power Drills! Next, they'll be leaving the kitchen, not doing the laundry, and finding out about the joys of the workshop. They'll be tidying up our workshop, curtains in the windows, stop, STOP!!!!

You better watch out for Chicks with Sticks or better yet Iskweo with a chainsaw! Curtains shmurtains...

baby its cold outside... Come into my heated workshop.

 

[Guest]

They'll be tidying up our workshop, curtains in the windows, stop, STOP!!!!

I would go dust the venetian blinds in my shop but I have misplaced my Swiffer.

P2240568 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

 

[sweeper]

You better watch out for Chicks with Sticks or better yet Iskweo with a chainsaw! Curtains shmurtains...

baby its cold outside... Come into my heated workshop.

I am aware there are women out there with far better shops and far more skills. I have a friend who got his wife in working in the shop and that's what he ended up with AND that's not a bad thing. I just remind him about it every once in a while.

 

[mwaalen]

Definitely can relate to misplacing stuff but tools generally are not my problem being quite OCD with organizing the workshop. Billfold and keys are an entirely different story.

A number of years ago I purchased a nice tool bag for my son and have been stocking it with this-&-that as I either come across a duplicate, or X-mas present, or good garage sale buy. Just last weekend I was looking for a chisel and knew he had a set of new ones in his kit which I somehow found deep down in its bowels. Granted I needed to take the entire thing apart and rebuild it. Yes...the photo you see is the completely reorganized bag.

As for the missing ring and propane tank, odds are they are both in this very bag someplace as I'm believing it to be an honest-to-goodness black hole. This would explain why it is impossibly heavy.

Missing Ring Story: When we were in the middle of remodeling our first home, each week ended with a festive trash fire and way too many drinks. One blurry Sunday I bumbled around the property frantically searching for my wedding ring. In a last ditch effort reluctantly broke into the multiple trash bags full of beer cans and whatever other filth ended up in there. Probably diapers in those years. The ring was found stuck nicely to the inside of a bottle cap and in a flash my brain remembered sticking it there for whatever reason. Bullet dodged...Glad those days are over.

 

[Odyssey]

Wedding rings.
My wife has a china ring dish on a shelf up above the baking area on our Welsh sideboardy thing. I've started using this prissy looking dish. Being a clumsy newbie baker I get annoyed with dough getting clammily caught under my ring, and also know how close I've come to misplacing said ring, too many times usually on construction sites where I work. At the end of the day I used to remove my wedding ring to thoroughly scrub my hands with pumice hand cleaner. Then after drying I'd immediately slip the ring back on. Well, that was the plan... IF I'd remembered where I'd put the ring for safekeeping, and IF I'd remembered to retrieve it at all. Too many times I've gone back to the jobsite the following day sweating and praying I'd find the small gold band before it might be lost forever. On a tablesaw. In an unfinished cupboard. On a basement step. On a stepladder. On a can of paint. Beside a pile of sawdust and shavings. In an old ballcap. I don't even put it in my pocket anymore. Goodness knows that's not even a safe place anymore. Unless I fasten it onto my keyring. That's a safe place, I never lose those. Knock on wood. Cross my heart and hope to die.

 

[frozentripper]

The upside (sometimes) of not being able to locate a misplaced tool is the joy from finding it again... the most recent being a little block plane that had faithfully served for many years and suddenly missing. It turned up several weeks later in a drawer where I had put it in during a brain dead moment. Now, a happy moment, and repeated again whenever I thought about the faithful block plane having returned, sitting there restored, where it should be, in it's proper place, ready and available to be used, like it always was.

Maybe one day smart machines will do the searching, like Alexa's starting to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk&feature=youtu.be

 

[Guest]

I get annoyed with dough getting clammily caught under my ring, and also know how close I've come to misplacing said ring, too many times usually on construction sites where I work. At the end of the day I used to remove my wedding ring to thoroughly scrub my hands with pumice hand cleaner. Then after drying I'd immediately slip the ring back on. Well, that was the plan... IF I'd remembered where I'd put the ring for safekeeping, and IF I'd remembered to retrieve it at all. Too many times I've gone back to the jobsite the following day sweating and praying I'd find the small gold band before it might be lost forever.

I am not a fan of rings or any other jewelry when doing construction or shop work. I have come very close to ring avulsion a couple times when working. Chain link fence work is an absolute ring no no. Once should have been enough.

https://www.orthobullets.com/hand/6061/ring-avulsion-injuries

Even without traumatic injury rings can be problematic. I was pop rivet regunwaling a canoe with a friend. Well not “I”, his boat, he can do all of the pop rivet squeezing. Been there, done that, made my hand hurt.

He was wearing a twisted band gold wedding ring that fit together like puzzle pieces. When he finished installing 70 pop rivets the band had been crushed to an oval and was not coming off without a struggle.

No rings when working. Or paddling, I caught a ring on the exposed shank of a machine screw while portaging and essentially threw the canoe aside.

Odyssey, FWIW I have two identical wedding rings. Fortunately they are simple white-gold bands.

You can guess why I bought the spare.

 

[Guest]

My tools/my rules:

If you want to use my tools; you use them in, or outside my "loafer's shed".
NO, you can't use my chain saw either in or out of my "loafer's shed".
I do not loan my tools; I do not ask others to borrow their tools.

Kids using my tools are supervised.
Adults aren't, but I might offer suggestions...................
As an ex wilderness first responder, I can help those who ignore my suggestions.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Mike, I have found that the best way to locate a lost tool is to search earnestly for a different lost tool. Works almost every time.