The gremlins have struck again.....

[10KPete]

Ever have one of those days where things are going just below average? When it takes three tries to do what two should do? Then the finish line approaches..... the end of the job is in sight.... just one last part to fit up.....


And the 2-3 mic can't be found.   Anywhere!!! Or the box.

I spent an hour and a half in the shop searching.... even looked in the wash tank... and behind the bandsaw...and under the work bench....and all the drawers in the benches and toolboxes and.....everywhere!!

Then I came in the house and spent another 40 minutes.....

The sucker just ain't here!  I swear it isn't here....

Called my friend who I doing the job for to see if it landed in a box of parts that went back with him. A half hour later..... no joy.....

Done for the day.   

Pete

[Flyboy Jim]

Ever have one of those days where things are going just below average? When it takes three tries to do what two should do? Then the finish line approaches..... the end of the job is in sight.... just one last part to fit up.....


And the 2-3 mic can't be found.   Anywhere!!! Or the box.

I spent an hour and a half in the shop searching.... even looked in the wash tank... and behind the bandsaw...and under the work bench....and all the drawers in the benches and toolboxes and.....everywhere!!

Then I came in the house and spent another 40 minutes.....

The sucker just ain't here!  I swear it isn't here....

Called my friend who I doing the job for to see if it landed in a box of parts that went back with him. A half hour later..... no joy.....

Done for the day.   

Pete

Pete,

It's my prediction that you're going find it in the last place you look! 

Jim

[10KPete]

 

Pete

[Vixen]

2-3" mic?     useful size !!!!!

Check you haven't used it as a G-clamp somewhere.

Mike

[jadge]

Ever have one of those days where things are going just below average? When it takes three tries to do what two should do? Then the finish line approaches..... the end of the job is in sight.... just one last part to fit up.....

All days are like that;  I seem to spend half my life looking for things. Even things I had ten minutes ago and put down when the 'phone rang or doorbell went.

Andrew

[wagnmkr]

That's what it is like around here every day lately. I even cleaned up the shop and I still can't find anything.

[Tin Falcon]

yes have felt the pain and sweated in the t shirt.

Tin

[crueby]

The shop Gnomes probably left it in the freezer, behind the ice cream...   

[Mosey]

Ever have one of those days where things are going just below average? When it takes three tries to do what two should do? Then the finish line approaches..... the end of the job is in sight.... just one last part to fit up.....


And the 2-3 mic can't be found.   Anywhere!!! Or the box.

I spent an hour and a half in the shop searching.... even looked in the wash tank... and behind the bandsaw...and under the work bench....and all the drawers in the benches and toolboxes and.....everywhere!!

Then I came in the house and spent another 40 minutes.....

The sucker just ain't here!  I swear it isn't here....

Called my friend who I doing the job for to see if it landed in a box of parts that went back with him. A half hour later..... no joy.....

Done for the day.   

Pete

In your shirt pocket?

[Brian Rupnow]

I am going to become a billionaire.--I am going to invent a chemical that makes all tools, when handled once, turn blaze orange and stay that way for the next 16 hours, then fade back to their normal color. I know where all my tools are when I start a job. It's just while I am using the damn things that they disappear. Every time I pick a tool up, then set it down, some unique flaw in my psyche makes me set it down in a different place. I always find it again before the day is over, but some days I spend more time looking for the right tool (which I just had 5 minutes ago) than I do actually working.---Brian

[gerritv]

Those little GPS tracker chips are almost small enough now to attach one to everything.

[Don1966]

Pete I been there many a time, helll I spent an hour one time looking. It always ends it on a shelf or right there in your eyes view but don't see it. Sometimes I feel like I lost it because I should of known it was there. When we work we concentrate on what we are doing and don't pay attention to where we lay things and it just burns me up because I am always misplacing my tools.......

PS  I hope you find it just look in the obvious places....
Don

[mklotz]

I've said for a long time that a good case of OCD is a real asset in the shop.  I have a really good/bad case.  It drives my wife nuts.  I'll ask her what she was doing with the fountain pen on my desk...
 
How do you know I was using it?

Because it's not where I keep it.

I put it exactly where I found it.

Yeah, but not in the direction it was pointing.

The problem is that I have a very small shop.  As a result I frequently reorganize tools and materials to use space more efficiently or effectively.  Then, for weeks after, I'll keep looking in the old location for a tool until the aging frontal cortex rewires the neural memory loop.

[philjoe5]

No worries Pete.  You'll find it an hour before the one you ordered as its replacement is delivered on your doorstep

Cheers,
Phil

[mcostello]

Do You have a shop apron? Don't ask why I am asking that!

[10KPete]

Pete,

It's my prediction that you're going find it in the last place you look! 

Jim

Give the man a ciiigggaaarrrrr!!!

It occurred to me in the middle of the night that I hadn't opened all the drawers in the big roll-away with all the mechanics tools......

I must be going south 'cause there it was. In its box. Nicely placed.

I guess I was using it last to fit and assemble the first eccentric pair then when that was done put all the tools I was using for that task away. In the same place......   

At least the shop elves didn't get it. Buggers!

Pete

[Steamer5]

Hi Pete,
 I use to drive the kids nuts, revenge is sweet, when they couldn't find stuff by telling them, look in the last place YOU put it! As they got older they wised up...ah well!

Thank god Chris gnomes didn't get it! I think I my have found away of keeping them at bay.....as they seem to like chocolate & mint cookies, & my wife made pistachio & cardamon I haven't seen them....not holding out much hope for a permanent fix, besides they didn't leave the shinny bit they nicked a couple of weeks ago!

Cheers Kerrin 

[crueby]

Hi Pete,
 I use to drive the kids nuts, revenge is sweet, when they couldn't find stuff by telling them, look in the last place YOU put it! As they got older they wised up...ah well!

Thank god Chris gnomes didn't get it! I think I my have found away of keeping them at bay.....as they seem to like chocolate & mint cookies, & my wife made pistachio & cardamon I haven't seen them....not holding out much hope for a permanent fix, besides they didn't leave the shinny bit they nicked a couple of weeks ago!

Cheers Kerrin

Your gnomes sent my elves that shiny bit, I saw them parading it around the shop...   

No permanent solution, just keep making them cookies once in a while.

[Steamer5]

Chris,
    I was wondering if these guys might work to keep them gnomes or elves away......

 

Cheers Kerrin

[crueby]

I don't think that you can keep them away, just get them on your side! Enough cookies and they make parts for you rather than steal them. They appear to like those minnion cakes, the one on the lower left is already gone!

[10KPete]

Well, it seems the solution has been right in front of my eyes here all along... Cookies!! You guys keep on
about the cookies... We haven't been baking cookies recently, at least not much since Christmas.

Gotta go bake up a bunch of cookies before the little jokers get really upset and start moving more stuff around.....

Cookies....cookies   

Pete

[crueby]

Well, it seems the solution has been right in front of my eyes here all along... Cookies!! You guys keep on
about the cookies... We haven't been baking cookies recently, at least not much since Christmas.

Gotta go bake up a bunch of cookies before the little jokers get really upset and start moving more stuff around.....

Cookies....cookies   

Pete

Make enough for yourself too, everyone wins!      

[10KPete]

But of course!!

Pete

[sshire]

My most "gremlin-hidden" tool is the ½" mike.
I was talking with my son on the phone and describing the 30 minute ½" mike search. A few days later, this arrived in the mail.

[mklotz]

What, no quick-draw, mini-mike holster made of fine Corinthian leather?

Out here in the land of fruits and nuts, the machinists have their ears pierced and wear a pair of them as ear whorls.

Well, admittedly that's a bit of exaggeration but I have seen Harley-hoodlums wearing ball bearings as whorls.

[Tennessee Whiskey]

What a great idea Marv, my 1/2' mic had a hole drilled in the frame (bought used) , perhaps I'll open up the old earring hole (yeah own 3 Harleys) I would want a platinum quick detach though

Cletus

No emoties in respect of Marv

[mklotz]

Half inch micrometers have become passe; we all have one.  So, who will be the first to build a quarter inch mike?

Long ago, probably in a magazine like Popular Mechanics, I remember seeing an article about an instrument machinist who had made himself a tie clip (remember those?) that featured a functioning eighth inch mike.  Quite an advertisement for his skills.  That would be small enough to wear through a pierced septum.

[Dave Sohlstrom]

I have a shop floor that has holes in it that are portals to a different dimension. These holes are not big enough for me to fall through but just about any thing else that I drop is instantly transported never to be seen again.
To this day I have not seen the 1/4" ER11 collet that went through several years ago.

I will not even talk about the cloaking effect that is present on all work benches in my shop that can hide any object set on the bench.

Dave

[crueby]

I have a shop floor that has holes in it that are portals to a different dimension. These holes are not big enough for me to fall through but just about any thing else that I drop is instantly transported never to be seen again.
To this day I have not seen the 1/4" ER11 collet that went through several years ago.

I will not even talk about the cloaking effect that is present on all work benches in my shop that can hide any object set on the bench.

Dave

Very bad infestation of tunneling shop gnomes, a nasty variety... Do you hear their machinery running late at night?   

[10KPete]

Long ago I determined that there was a species of Shop Gnome much more advanced than the others. They do not require tools for tunneling or key for locks or other such mundane accoutrements. These Gnomes are able to simply pass through solids very like ghosts, however unlike ghosts they are able to return to a very solid presence once they have transited the wall, floor or whatever. But they have a nasty, to them, limitation to this ethereal ability: they are unable to move other objects through walls when they make the transit!

This is why we find so many of their little treasures, those shiny bits they borrow from us, at the edges of the floor near the walls. They still, in spite of their advanced ability to pass through solids, have not learned that the bits can't also make the journey.

So they hit the wall running and the bit they are carrying is ripped from their little paws and clatters to the floor.

Lord help us if they ever develop the ability to carry those bits through the walls!!!

Pete

[crueby]

Sounds like we need to assemble the definitive guide to shop gnomes, shop elves, and shop gremlins! Care and feeding, defenses, treaty techniques, etc. Should be a copy in the Hogwarts library, but apparently the gnomes stole it.