Lost tools

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  • LCHIEN
    Internet Fact Checker
    • Dec 2002
    • 20914
    • Katy, TX, USA.
    • BT3000 vintage 1999

    Lost tools

    Reading Hank's post on finding long lost tools, I was wondering, How many of have tools we know (or think) we got but just can't find? What are they?
    What's your experience?

    I swore for the longest time I bought a set of chisels. But I could never find them. Got some other since.
    Loring in Katy, TX USA
    If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems as if they were nails.
    BT3 FAQ - https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...sked-questions
  • Bill in Buena Park
    Veteran Member
    • Nov 2007
    • 1865
    • Buena Park, CA
    • CM 21829

    #2
    I don't have lost tools until I'm in the middle of a project and can't remember where I've set them. Usually measuring tools - so I've bought several and placed at designated spots throughout the shop so if the one I'm using goes missing I know where I can find the next nearest. I do this with bench brushes as well, several hanging from hooks around the shop. I can find everything at the start because I'm fairly methodical about tool storage and cleanup. However I do sometimes find seldom used tools I forgot I have, like a C3 cordless buffer I thought I'd use ifor polishing finishes.
    Bill in Buena Park

    Comment

    • capncarl
      Veteran Member
      • Jan 2007
      • 3564
      • Leesburg Georgia USA
      • SawStop CTS

      #3
      My youngest son liked to help me work on the Spridget race car when he was 3-4. It was great fun watching him play with wrenches, pretending he was working. I kept missing small wrenches that he was playing with, and had to buy some more small brake bleeder size. Months later when I was loading the floor jack in the truck I found the missing tools........ He had been dropping them in the hollow pipe jack handle. I wouldn't trade those times for anything.
      capncarl

      Comment


      • LCHIEN
        LCHIEN commented
        Editing a comment
        great story.
    • twistsol
      Veteran Member
      • Dec 2002
      • 2893
      • Cottage Grove, MN, USA.
      • Ridgid R4512, 2x ShopSmith Mark V 520, 1951 Shopsmith 10ER

      #4
      For me, it is whatever was in my hand 5 minutes ago that I've set down somewhere. I have half a dozen tape measures so I can usually find at least 1

      Last fall though, I took the mower blades off the deck and sharpened them. In the spring I couldn't find them and to this day I still can't. I ended up buying a new set at $80 plus the 20 mile drive each way to the Kubota dealer.
      Chr's
      __________
      An ethical man knows the right thing to do.
      A moral man does it.

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      • Pappy
        The Full Monte
        • Dec 2002
        • 10453
        • San Marcos, TX, USA.
        • BT3000 (x2)

        #5
        Somewhere around here I have a second set of HF picks that I bought to keep in my too box. Also a couple of small screwdrivers that I was using in the house that I never found again.
        Don, aka Pappy,

        Wise men talk because they have something to say,
        Fools because they have to say something.
        Plato

        Comment

        • capncarl
          Veteran Member
          • Jan 2007
          • 3564
          • Leesburg Georgia USA
          • SawStop CTS

          #6
          Years ago I had a "thing" about buying screwdriver sets, Craftsman 19 piece sets to be exact. Every time they would put them on sale I would pick up a set or two, they make great Christmas and birthday gifts! I would put them back in the top of the closet, in the bottom dresser drawers, top of my tool boxes and anywhere else not occupied by something. When our house flooded and I had to sort everything out for the insurance claim I gathered all the screwdriver packages up, busted them open and put them in something like a 54 quart Rubbermaid container. They filled up the container and I couldn't lift it! I've sense given a number of sets to my kids. Now whenever I loose a screwdriver in my shop I don't bother looking very long, I just reach in the box in the bottom of my toolbox and get a new one! You can't ever have enough screwdrivers! I'm down about half a box now.

          Comment

          • dbhost
            Slow and steady
            • Apr 2008
            • 9209
            • League City, Texas
            • Ryobi BT3100

            #7
            I have been finding a mess of my tools lately. Thus found so far this year.
            #1. Blue Point Digital multimeter.
            #2. All my hole saws. Harbor Freight BiMetal large and small sets, as well as the terrible black steel large and small sets. I have since given the large set to one of my brothers in law to see if he can finish destroying it.
            #3. Misc screwdrivers ranging from Harbor Freight cheapies to my Snap On screwdrivers.
            #4. Allen wrench sets. Metric and SAE.
            #5. SAE and Metric Feeler gauges.
            #6. Pickup magnets
            #7. My Harbor Freight framing nailer. No joke. I forgot I lent it to a friend to build his deck. He brought it back, we were having a few beers, and in the conversation I stowed it behind the lawn mower (#$%!
            #8. Lathe tools. I mean I knew where they were, but I couldn't lay my hands on them, mostly due to the giant pile of shavings since cleaned off.
            Please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Please check out and subscribe to my Workshop Blog.

            Comment

            • leehljp
              Just me
              • Dec 2002
              • 8429
              • Tunica, MS
              • BT3000/3100

              #8
              For some reason, when I need a flat screwdriver, I can find a dozen philips drivers - in drawers, in two tote tool boxes and in my big tool box, with not decent flat screw driver. Then a month later needing a phillips driver, I can't find a single one, but lo and behold, there will be half a dozen flat screw drivers.

              Once when coming down off the roof of the house, I laid my best hammer in the gutter as I was getting on the ladder and someone calling me. It took me until the next gutter cleaning time to figure out where that hammer was. I figure someone was calling me or something as I usually just toss my unbreakable tools such as hammer or screwdrivers down. Something distracted me.


              Concerning tape measures, I have settled on either Yellow or fluorescent green tape measures. It helps me find them.

              I like small pocket knives that don't take lots of space in my pocket, especially the Victorinox Swiss Classic knife - in YELLOW.
              Red, blue, green, silver, brown, black in knives, and tools in those colors HIDE in plain sight. Yellow and flouroescent colors of green and orange help me spot them quickly.


              FINDING TOOLS I didn't know I had:
              In the shed yesterday, one tool container had a Porter Cable Plunge Router base in it, NEW. I don't EVER remember buying that. Also, three weeks ago, I found a new Sears hammer drill in case with book. I don't ever remember purchasing a "Sears" hammer drill and especially not using it. I called my son in laws and asked if they had bought it and lost it. They said "No". Gave it to one anyway last week. I have tools my dad left me but the plunge base and drill were newer than what he left me. Maybe LOML forget to give me that Christmas present because she couldn't find it!
              Last edited by leehljp; 08-03-2016, 02:25 PM.
              Hank Lee

              Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted!

              Comment

              • BadeMillsap
                Senior Member
                • Dec 2005
                • 868
                • Bulverde, Texas, USA.
                • Grizzly G1023SL

                #9
                Originally posted by Bill in Buena Park
                I don't have lost tools until I'm in the middle of a project and can't remember where I've set them. Usually measuring tools - so I've bought several and placed at designated spots throughout the shop so if the one I'm using goes missing I know where I can find the next nearest. I do this with bench brushes as well, several hanging from hooks around the shop. I can find everything at the start...
                what he said

                Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

                "Like an old desperado, I paint the town beige ..." REK
                Bade Millsap
                Bulverde, Texas
                => Bade's Personal Web Log
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                Comment

                • JimD
                  Veteran Member
                  • Feb 2003
                  • 4187
                  • Lexington, SC.

                  #10
                  I have multiples of lots of things because they get set down and become unfindable. They show up but it is a lot less frustrating to use a different steel ruler or tape measure rather than go crazy looking for the one that I had been using. I've also found several things in the utility room that I had misplaced and moved them to a better spot in the shop. Until I get a permanent home that makes sense to me for everything, I have trouble finding things. Multiples helps. And the things I use the most I just have to have multiples because I am forever setting them down somewhere. Then they become invisible. I bought a package of 10 .5mm pencils so I would always be able to find one. A buck or two for peace of mind is a good deal.

                  Comment

                  • Bill in Buena Park
                    Veteran Member
                    • Nov 2007
                    • 1865
                    • Buena Park, CA
                    • CM 21829

                    #11
                    Originally posted by JimD
                    I bought a package of 10 .5mm pencils so I would always be able to find one. A buck or two for peace of mind is a good deal.
                    Amen to that. I have two pencils on every table and tool stand for the same reason.
                    Bill in Buena Park

                    Comment


                    • LCHIEN
                      LCHIEN commented
                      Editing a comment
                      Did that once, now they all seem to have disappeared. Guess I'm going to have to do it again.
                  • capncarl
                    Veteran Member
                    • Jan 2007
                    • 3564
                    • Leesburg Georgia USA
                    • SawStop CTS

                    #12
                    Leehljp, my wife is bad about buying Christmas presents throughout the year when she finds something at a great buy and putting them up and forgetting about them. At least now that the kids are gone she doesn't have to hide stuff so her lost purchases are confined to several closets!

                    Comment

                    • cwsmith
                      Veteran Member
                      • Dec 2005
                      • 2737
                      • NY Southern Tier, USA.
                      • BT3100-1

                      #13
                      It seems that I'm always misplacing things, one moment it's in my hand and next I can't find where I placed it. Strange is when I haven't moved more than a few feet in any direction, but darned if I can find it. Yet, when I return an hour or two later, there it is....AND, didn't I already look there? (Proof that there's alternate dimensions intersecting my space?) Subsequently, I have several tape measures and keep a worthy supply of pencils at hand.

                      I don't loan tools and I never have assistance on my projects, so any loss is strictly my own fault. Over the years I've lost a few screwdrivers, but probably more confounding, a couple of pliers that I've lost. Just no idea where they could have gone or why they would have ever left my around-the-house tool bag. (I imagine that years after I'm gone and someone is remodeling a house that I once owned, they discover these items behind or under a wall or cabinet that I once built.)

                      Strangest loss and later found item I ever had was a 1/2-inch bench chisel. It was part of a set of four that I had bought and kept on my work bench. Never used them anywhere except at the bench and yet a month or so after I bought them, the 1/2-inch came up missing. I searched everywhere and I just couldn't find it. It was just a cheap set, but still it was aggrevating. A year later I found that chisel up on the roof of my garage when I was doing my once-a-year gutter cleaning. No idea how it got there and it is certainly not a tool that I would have, even absentmindedly, used for cleaning the eaves trough, yet there is was.

                      I've got a few tools that I can't put my 'finger on' at the moment, but I know they're here somewhere... just takes a bit of looking. Problem for me is a lack of room and too often sticking a tool or hardware item somewhere that I'll know will be easy to find the 'next time'.... now if I can only remember where that was!

                      CWS
                      Last edited by cwsmith; 08-04-2016, 10:23 AM.
                      Think it Through Before You Do!

                      Comment

                      • capncarl
                        Veteran Member
                        • Jan 2007
                        • 3564
                        • Leesburg Georgia USA
                        • SawStop CTS

                        #14
                        Cwsmith... I lost a blender for a couple of weeks and later found it on the roof of my shop. That was 40 yrs ago when CB radios were the craze. My buddies were helping me install an antenna on the roof and a party broke out, or a party broke out and we decided to install an antenna, I can't remember.

                        Comment

                        • onedash
                          Veteran Member
                          • Mar 2005
                          • 1013
                          • Maryland
                          • Craftsman 22124

                          #15
                          Reloading dies! I swear I bought a set of reloading dies for my 460 XVR, even found an email to the company where I asked questions about them and the email said I bough this set. It's been years and haven't seen them anywhere.
                          YOU DONT HAVE TO TRAIN TO BE MISERABLE. YOU HAVE TO TRAIN TO ENDURE MISERY.

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