Every time I put a tool down - it vanishes!
It doesn't seem to matter if it's a socket,a spanner or even an angle grinder, i use it, put it down, then amoment later it's gone! I
then spend the next 5 minutes looking for it only to find it's quietly sneaked back to wherever I left it.
Is this just happening to me, or does anyone else experience this bizzare phenomenon?
happens to me
It's well known throughout the world. It happens everytime I'm rushing to do something.
I think it's called "forfoxsake".......
Yup..... used to get it all the time.... reaally frustrating and means every job takes twice as long...
I invested in some good tool racks/cabinates and pegs..
Now every tool has a home.....I try and put back tools as soon as I have finished with them and at the end of every session make sure every tool is
back in its rightful place....that way you can instill some discipline in the annoying little buggers!
Tool blindness !
It affects us all eventually
I too suffer from this strange phenomena.
I reckon it must be some sort of tear in the space-time continuum (aka swirly thing alert) through which the tools get sucked.
There must be a planet somewhere where the inhabitants have developed bizarre rituals in reverence to the sky gods to stop them dropping spanners on
their heads.
Ive got a pit in my garage.... whenever anything goes missing i can always be sure it rolled down there.... and its always when i have the car over it
on axle stands, so i cant move it out the way... grrrr 
AARRRGGGHHH!! Ye've been infiltrated by the garage pixies! They come and move yer tools around, and are at their worst when yer in a hurry. Yer
doooomed I tell yer!!
Sam
Ask Colin about the missing tools in his 'shed', spend half hour looking for stuff that then appears right in front of us !
I only get it with allen keys. I own 3 sets now and can find all of them except the size I want. One time I was working under the back of the car with 1 allen key and 1 spanner. The garage floor was swept clean and there was nothing around me. I put the allen key down for a moment, without moving, and seconds later when I went to pick it up it had gone. I couldn't find it at all.
I usually find I'm sitting or lying on whatever I'm looking for 
There's a 10mm Facom spanner somewhere really safe though and
it's been there two years now. I have three sets of Allen keys and lots of safety glasses for this very reason
happens regularly to me, the pixies are pretty clever my way though. They put it in a pretty sensible place, but cover it with a invisability cloak, that is only removed once I have rummaged right next to it, then done a full lap of the garage to find it.
My worst habbit when the thing you dropped at your feet has completely dissapeared, is to drop something similar - this either dissapears too or never ends up where the original lost item went. I don't know where half my tools have gone, nor where a quarter of my tools came from - this also means I'm 25% down on tools all the time....
quote:Mine's even more selective! I now have 4 sets of allen keys all missing the 3mm one!!
Originally posted by smart51
I only get it with allen keys. I own 3 sets now and can find all of them except the size I want. One time I was working under the back of the car with 1 allen key and 1 spanner. The garage floor was swept clean and there was nothing around me. I put the allen key down for a moment, without moving, and seconds later when I went to pick it up it had gone. I couldn't find it at all.
I spend a depressing large amount of workshop time looking for tools that I put down and lost within 15 seconds. It drives me around the bend and usually puts me in a very bad mood!
Only occasionally with tools, but often with nuts/bolt/washers/clips I've taken off and will be re-using but are now hidden. Red floor paint is perfect camouflage background for rusty fasteners - would pick light grey if given another chance.
in our house its keys and mobiles they seem to be able to move and hide every time i put them down
I'm sure that we've got a poltergeist, I can't think of any other explanation. For example, I can sit on the floor use a screwdriver to remove a socket from the wall, scrape off a bit of paint that has stuck to the socket and then try to put the socket back, only to find that the screwdriver is 10ft away!
LOL! Allen keys and safety goggles for me too!!
quote:I'd still lose that!! Perhaps if I attached it to my belt with a bungee when it did go wandering off it would reach the limit of its extension and then come flying back (no doubt smacking me hard just to remind me it was there!!)
Originally posted by Steve Hignett
I lost the engine mounting bolts for my car about 2 months ago. found them saturday in the cardboard box i left them in, even though i checked in that box loads of times
I'm pretty good with tools in that I always try to put them back but its nuts, bolts and bits of trim. I invested in a couple of them magnetic
bowls to pin the things down but the stainless stuff just disappears. I have this deep down worry that I've always held since being a kid in that
I put screws into my mouth so I don't lose them if I'm going to use them next and then they goes and I start wondering if I've
swallowed them by accident.
Happens to me with tape measures, i have about 6 now due to the amount of times i have lost them. Im getting ready to move house and whilst packing up
some of my stuff I found 4 in a huddle plotting.
Mrs bob tells me its man thing... never can find anything thats right under our noses, i cant argue with that as its a normal day in the garage for
me.
I now have a list on the garage wall of tools i have lent out, nothing more frustrating than looking for something that isnt there at all.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Hignett
Yup, I suffer from this a lot too.
The other problem I have is fridge suck.
No matter where you lose that tiny part you need to fix something, you can be sure it'll end up under the fridge/freezer, next to a pea
that's been there since 1974.
It happens to me
but usually when needing a "punch" I walk off to the Shed with the hammer put it down pick up the punch and walk back to the car. Then
spend 10 mins looking for the bloodly hammer.
Simially with things like sockets & ratchets.
Spanners also Climb just out of vision and reach Just after you have managed to wriggle into that awkward position under the landrover with CR*P
falling in your eys.
OOO and mulitmeter leads always tie themselves in knots GRRR....
maybe one of these worn 24/7
http://www.bestbelt.com/images/5000/5191-toolbelt.jpg
I recently spent 3 hours searching for a 13mm ring spanner... eventually found it had fallen into a bucket of old engine oil that was awaiting
disposal.... quite how it magically migrated from where i was working right across to the other end of the garage i will never know!
I blame the squirrels! crafty b*ggers with thier twitchy noses!
[Edited on 27-4-09 by DaveFJ]
I had to change the wiring on my new headlights the other and took the little screw out the bottom. Left it in the ring of a spanner I had on the
floor.
Fixed the wiring, moved to the other light but couldn't find the screw, anywhere.....
Couple hours later I was in the garden and my slippers were making a metallic noise on the patio, low and behold the little screw embedded in the
sole!
Yep, happens to everyone.
Strangely i suffered it most just after my grandfather died. Im sure he was responsible for moving stuff about, probs only trying to help
I suffer this problem too but mines called the wife.
She has an incessant need to keep tidying tools away especially the ones i need. Got a nice little pile of them just where Im working them she comes
along and tidies up and goes out of the garage again I turn round to pick up one of the aforementioned tools and its not there.
I then have to spend 5 minutes extricating myself to walk to the toolchest to retrieve the tool I need
Fear not - I have the answer!
Remember when you were little and you had those mittens with the long cord that went up one sleeve and down the other?
Bit of string with a 13mm spanner on one end and a crosshead screwdriver on the other threaded through your overalls!
The down side is that you'll need 30 sets of overalls, more if you need to cover imperial/Whitworth/BA/BSP etc.
Cheers
Chris
I'm glad I'm not the only one. When I'm a little bit richer I will employ the garage equivalent of a operating theatre nurse.
John