What to do when you lose something

I managed to lose a grub-screw today, but in a very odd way.

Making an adjustable alignment tool for assembling my steam-wagon's exhaust components, I had drilled and tapped 3 radial holes in each of two plugs, to be held by grub-screws onto a central bar. I put all the screws in, then for the life of me could not back off one so the plug would slide onto the bar.

I could not understand it, but the holes are relatively deep as the parts are yet to be turned to diameter and taper, on the bar, so it's not easy to see what's what. Nevertheless, I could not find a key to operate that one little grub. I gave up and retreated indoors for tea - not before time as I cannot stand for long on my recently-injured leg.

I did though take the offending item in, for another look.

Indoors I could not find my metric ball-driver set. There are that many tools and machines indoors I am host to not one but two gremlin families.

Sighed , said "Oh... bother!"

Had tea.

Found ball-drivers. The gremlins had put them on the floor under the computer table.

Still no joy ...

Then a strange thought... are there two screws in there?

There were indeed, the outer loosely held by friction and slight burring, but free to rotate by key.

I am not sure if it was a grub-screw I'd lost, or an empty hole for a grub-screw.

'

Reading this thread and similar, I wonder if Claudia Hammond has ever covered this aspect of behaviour in her All In The Mind programme?

You've heard of the fat-bergs found in the London sewers, I'm sure.

Well, somewhere in the Cambridge sewers is an enormous biro-and-teaspoon-berg.

I often find myself looking for things that I had just a moment ago and have now vanished into thin air.

I have developed a technique that is surprisingly good at finding them.

Pick up any random object and go to the last place you remember having the lost item.

Then start moving around the workshop trying to put the random object down (for some reason scratching your head with the free hand helps [or provides comfort]).

Look in all the places where the random object lands, until you find it.

If this doesn't work, repeat with a throwing motion.

If this still doesn't work chances are you will have forgotten what you were looking for anyway.

Go back to what you were doing (if you can remember).

The lost item will be there.

David.

It's not just me either. The following is a conversation with my wife:

"Can I borrow a hammer?"
"I thought you had your own hammer?"
"I do but I can't find it. can I borrow a hammer?"
"Have you looked in your hobby room?"
"YES I HAVE. It's not there. Can I BORROW a hammer?"
"In my hammer drawer in hobby shed...last bank of drawers and third down. If you had a hammer drawer you'ld know where yours was."
"I've only got one hammer so i don't need a hammer drawer. I can never find anythng in your shed. will you fetch one?."
"What sort? ball pein, tack, claw, weight, plastic, brass, steel, mallet?" (OK so i was being unfair but fun to wind her up sometimes). "Oh and when did you last use yours?"
"it's been ages and ages. I just want a hammer."
"Hmm.. think back. What were you using it for?"
"Oh, I don't know I think I hung a picture in my hobby room."
"Have you looked on the floor under the picture?"
<time passes, OH leaves the room and returns with her own hammer>
There was a lot of silence that day..

Why do things hide in plain sight though?

Even quite big objects sometimes think they are chameleons and vanish into the background even when clearly on the bench or chip-tray. I've even managed to "lose" big tool-boxes!

'

One night, faced with a tricky engineering "sum" beyond simple arithmetic, I failed to find my calculator. Anywhere. I had no computer at the time. "Bother!" So:

Slide-rule.... That was hiding as well. "Damn!" (Ooer - watch they words.)

Log-tables, having refreshed my memory with the worked example in the engineering text-book that holds them.

"Hooray!" (Sum done.)

Next day, I bought a new scientific calculator, in WH Smiths or similar.

Three weeks later, I opened a drawer in searching for something else.... Guess!

' ' '

That was some years ago, not long after portable telephones had dropped from coat-pocket to near shirt-pocket size. Yet calculators had gone the other way. That which went missing is about as thick and wide, but shorter and much lighter than the present-day "smart"-phone. Though still lighter than the bulky "smart"-phone, all those calculators on sale, even the simple arithmetical ones, had gone to large coat-pocket size.

Oh, and I found my two slide-rules recently. One I'd bought while still at school, the other had been Dad's. And I still have the log & trig tables available if necessary... or by choice.

I lost my 12" ruler the other day while doing a job found it near my foot.

Seriously how can you put down a 12" ruler 1"wide nice and shiny on a bench while working and promptly lose it. After having to resort to a 6" one and nearly finishing the job in hand and leaving it over night in the shed walk in and find it sitting on the end of the bench where I was working despite hunting for it the day before.

Edited By Derek Lane on 24/04/2021 09:07:38

I lost a small tap wrench - one of those little Eclipse ones. The gremlins were keeping a really tight hold of it. Some weeks on, I finally got round to the task I had not been wanting to do, which was searching in a huge bucket of steel swarf. Like an idiot, I had parked the swarf bucket within range of the bench.

I cannot describe the utter joy of finding it amongst the swarf, wresting it from the disappointed gremlins, and parking it back on the wall on the two nails where it's supposed to live.

Well it's obvious where you would find a foot ruler .

Martin

Lost my six inch ruler. Over the course of many weeks I searched everywhere I could think of, workshop, house even the garden, nothing! It was time to bite the bullet and buy another one. I waited several weeks for it to arrive. After a few messages to the suppliers they sent another one in place of the original which never arrived. The new six inch ruler arrived. Off out to the workshop to finish the job that I had abandoned when I lost my six inch ruler. But what was the measurement? I head back indoors get the book with the measurements that I need. It has been sitting on the coffee table next to where I place my teacup. I pick it up and it falls open at the exact place because I'd had the sense to mark the place with my six inch ruler!

I have You all beat. Several years ago I lost something, don't remember what it is even now. I started to search in all My drawers of tools. Next day I started searching and realized that i may search over several days and duplicate the searched places, so I made a list of where I have searched. I did not note what I was looking for so I have a list that does no good.

What is ones chance of finding a way to stop small items falling on your foot and always find itself under a machine or table ? I decided one day to remove the work bench and clean the workshop, the list of long gone things will be several pages!

The late John Stevenson once confessed to owning seven angle grinders, having 'lost' the previous six!

Like everyone else, I can put a tool down, pick up something else and then lose them both.

Brian

Basic fact is that matter is evil and naturally seeks it's own dimension known as hyper-space.

Lost a small non standard screw on the kitchen floor. Half a day looking for it, another day making a replacement. Found it a week later stuck in the tread of my boot!

Len

Typical . This could be any of us.

Steve.

Is it lost forever

I am currently working on a way of gaining access to this dimension as I plan to expand my workshop in to it. Obviously when I do, I will be asking that you and others please stop losing things into it, as I have enough trouble keeping my own junk tidy.

David.

Three examples.

Last night I was reading in the lounge on my tablet. Watched a bit of telly without getting up. Half an hour later I went to collect the tablet to got up to bed. Still can't find it!

A couple of weeks ago I put down 2 m4 taps on my mill bench (I'm sure). Something stole them. No idea what.

Worst of all, a couple of years ago I lost my keys - pretty sure it was in the shed. Searched. Even tidied. Emptied the bin twice. Had to buy TWO electronic car keys (which was several months shed budget). 3 weeks ago a put an old coat on by accident and wondered why the electronic car key didn't work. Because the battery was flat after 2 years.

Hmm, thinking about it, I'm not sure where those keys are.

But yes, my ratio of looking for the thing I just put down to productive work is much too high!

Iain

Found my screwdriver,it had rolled under the hot water cylinder.During my early days I manage to cut my 6 inch rule in half when using the works guillotine,eventually one end of the rule was cut down to 1 1/4 ins and was used a lot when setting the tools on a Ward 2a Capstan,it was very easy to get this short rule in amongst the turret tooling.And it still got used until earlier this year,i used to measure some work on the mill as the end of the usual six inch rule fouled on something, and since then I just cannot find it,it annoys me that rule has been in the top right hand small drawer of my M & W cabinet since about 1960 and now I have lost it,probablly in the swarf. It was one of those Chesterman half inch rules where on one side the 1/32 graduations are on the edge nearest to you ,turn it over and the 1/32 graduations are away from you. they were very useful rules for imperial measurements,cant get one nowadays. Going back to capstan lathes ,I just wonder how capstan lathes were made by Wards and Alfred Herbert,there must have been thousands of them,Look at any film made during the war showing engineering works,there is always a lady shown making components for the war effort going like mad on the turret capstan handle.

I popped the keys to my roller tool chest in a safe place and promptly forgot where it was, after much searching I drilled the lock out to get access. The keys turned up in a space on a tower PC stored on a high shelf, impossible to see from normal levels. At work the key to a store was kept in a secret drawer, the secret drawer was in a Raaco storage rack with the label “Secret Drawer”

Mike

There is an old key taped to my front-door lock. Why? A Very Important aide-memoire.

'

After hearing part of it read in serial form on the radio, I bought a book from the Radio Times mail-order shop.

I have read the first chapter so far, learning from it among other things why those geneology-by-DNA companies I cite on another thread here are fundamentally flawed.

That is far as I have read. The other fundamental flaw is that the book has disappeared...

I think the cause is too many tools and small machines in the house. They attract the attention of the workshop elves...

The only thing to do is to buy a replacement item, then the lost item will reappear within days.

Dont even ask how I know this.