That little elf under the workbench again

About the middle of last summer, I had just finished polishing the spherical ends of the tee bar for the compression screw of the diesel engine I was making, when I dropped it. I spent an hour looking and sweeping the floor,checking the sweepings with a magnet,etc,all to no good, so I made another one.

This morning as I was entering my garage/workshop, my neighbour, who was working on the front of his house and was high up on a ladder, told me that the gutter running above the door was full of moss. As it was dry I thought I might as well clean it out. When I was scooping the moss out of the gutter I saw something shiny and, guess what, it was my long lost tee bar! Just how it got in the gutter is anyones guess. I think the part bounced further than I had swepped and had ended up out side on my drive. Perhaps a bird was then attracted to it and took it up on the roof and then dropped it,so it rolled down in to the gutter. We do have a lot of Magpies around. At least I now have a finished tee bar that will fit my latest effort.

Keith.

It probably was a bird, Keith. First thing this morning I was looking out of my living room window and spotted something shiny reflecting the morning sunlight. I went out to investigate and found an M5 x 30 CSK. HD. stainless steel screw. It had been used because there was some sort of soft material on the threads and the slot on the head was slightly chewed. Unless some passer-by has taken up a hobby of randomly chucking used screws around ( unlikely ), I can only surmise that it had been picked up by some bird and then dropped. Anyway, I cleaned it up and put it into my stock of SS screws, and thanks very much!

Thats a bit modern, we only get imperial Magpies round our way.

;O)

Martin

PS They only go for twitworth threads

There was a rather touching story back in December, in a local magazine called The Register, of someone losing a ring.

It turned up a while later on the doorstep, and the theory there is that it was spotted somewhere in the garden and left there as a "gift" by a particular pair of crows that know they can get a square meal at that house.

'

My workshop elves do more than pinch your last 12BA X 1/4" screw (do they exist, that tiny?). They have the Power of Induced Invisibility.

Using a chain block to manipulate my steam-wagon boiler, was hampered by having to avoid the chains clattering and banging against the boiler. I recalled some hoists have a chain-bag suspended below them, then that there was red polythene bucket outside the workshop, now rendered useless for water by a split. So I brought it in to become chain-bucket, and put it down to take a suitable cord from a hook on the wall.

In those 30 seconds or so... how the heck do you lose sight of a large red plastic bucket?

It re-appeared after a while, and I am sure I had not put it behind the band-saw.

[How do I know there is a hole in my bucket... dear LBSC, dear LBSC...

In that cold snap I used the bucket to rescue a large mass of frog-spawn ice-lolly from the pond, in pond water, and placed it in the front porch so still very cold but out of the worst frost. Next day, I noticed the tide had gone out, luckily Neap rather than Spring... ]