[Closed] The agony of a lost tool

Relieved.

Thought this thread was going to be about a horrendous industrial accident.

I took MrsG for new tyres this week and the next day when I was cleaning the car for her (it was a pit) I found that the tyre fitters had left a very nice torque wrench in the boot. I took it back to the fitters and you could tell that the guy that fitted our tyres was very relieved to see it returned!

Opened thread wondering if this was a continuation of Flashy where are't thou
#disappointed

You may need to translate the word scunnered for those outside of Fife maybe Scotland

The tyre fitter was probably unscunnered rather than relieved

scunnered

Equally annoying is lost sports kit - when I used to climb I had built up a good rack of the gear that suited my style of climbing. I lent it to my brother for a couple of months and when it came back most of it had disappeared. Turned out HE had lent it to somebody and hadn't noticed the theft. I've never quite forgiven him for that.

Great when you find them though.

I lost my GPS watch and Knipex pliers, (the posh slip joint ones) a few weeks ago. Spent a good few hours over a weekend looking for them, no joy. Turned them both up at random within 1 minute of each other. 😁

Where did you have it last?
It'll be in the last place you look!
etc.

It’ll be in the last place you look!

Never understood this. Why would you continue to look for something you have now found?

😁 Exactly!
Also, the where did you have it last question, 'If I knew that, I'd not need to look!'

This happens to me after every cold ride.

Oh...

Wedged somewhere in that range rover/land rover thing that you took to bits a while back?

Is disappoint.

Was thinking this might be a thread about the sort of thing my wife occasionally had to x ray for when she was an A&E radiographer.

You know, the kind of thing where a look a nod a wink and a smile means EVERYONE in the department knows to come and have a quick look at the patient and the x ray.

Lightbulbs were a thing, apparently...

I lost my favourite 8mm spanner. It turned up literally the last day I could look for it, when we moved house, I was draining the washing machine and found it in the filter.

the tyre fitters had left a very nice torque wrench in the boot.

I think they use them to ensure the wheel nuts will be too tight for a mortal to undo with the wrench supplied with the car.

Nah they leave them lying around to give the impression they don't just wizz the wheel nuts up to "never coming undone again" tightness with the windy gun.

Tools? Ruins my day of I misplace a biro and there's boxes full of them in the cupboard at work.

We were burgled a while back , bike was recovered but my toolbag was taken but never returned.

In some ways was nice being able to go out and buy a complete set of new bike tools, but I missed some, just because they were familiar and then there were the things I forgot about because I used them so rarely , until I need that lifetime supply of red rubber grease, hope bore cap removal tool or works component BB tool !
Worst thing is im sure that the scally that nicked them probably has no idea what they are for & probably binned them😭

My little parallel jaw Knipex goes missing every so often.

After exhaustive searches, checking every corner, then waiting a week or two and repeating those searches, then it's obviously fallen out of my saddlebag.

So eventually I grit my teeth and buy a new one.

It's round about then the original pops up in a jacket I haven't worn since last winter or the bumbag from 2 'Puffers ago.

It's a cunning wee tool, but now I have 2 it doesn't seem to want to go wandering, and my son is grateful for the other one I gave him.

Hang on, where is it now?... 🙂

Great when you find them though.

I lost my hammer - the hammer of truth and justice - a framing hammer with an axe-like handle that sort of looked a bit murder-weapony

I bought three replacements before settling one I liked enough to use.... then I found the original again.

I feel your pain, I have a special tool for undoing the sump plug on our X Trail.  On one occasion whilst servicing it, could I find the tool.  I had the shed emptied, my tool boxes emptied and sorted.  I couldn't find it and went and bought another, after using it I thought to myself "put it in a safe place where you won't lose it",  The original tool was sitting in the safe place........

Perchypanther

Relieved.

Thought this thread was going to be about a horrendous industrial accident.

Smelting accident surely.

The agony of a lost tool

Must have been quite a wrench.....

I'll get Perchy's coat.

You'll find it, for sure.

When we got broken into the first time, the guy used my ancient draper expert allen keys to nick some parts off a secured bike, then went off with the 3mm and 4mm. I'd had them for over 20 years 🙁 I got a nicer set to replace them but it's not the same.

But then in the last break-in, the little shit took my entire storage box of little spares. Every brake pad, wheel adaptor, little spacer, spare brake olive, cable attachy thing, leftover bolt, bushing, spare bearing, little bit of chain that I'd built up over a decade. Even now I still keep on going to do a job and discovering I need something that was in that box.

if ever there was a need for a #gofundme page this has to be it!

My garage is a black hole of missing tools, Kept my socket set intact for 15 years though..its nothing special just a Halfords pro but its still grafting 😀

Don’t talk to me about losing stuff,

After suffer a head injury several years ago I went from being an Uber organised OCD loon to being a forgetful loon.

My only way of coping with this is to have small piles of ‘useful’ stuff around the house, this is so I can’t lose anything important.

(Useful as in no idea what I need it for)

My main problem is ,,, for eg,,,
Servicing forks and putting very small bits safe to one side whilst I root through a big pile of useless stuff for a specific bit of useful stuff then not being able to find the small useful bit to finish the job...

Sometimes I laugh 😞

I just tried to remove a Banshee dropout with my MBUK 3 way allen tool.
Well, that's that rooted then.

My hammer spent about three years on the cross-member of a housemates van. It drove for miles (like he stole it) and it just sat there. Eventually turned up when he started taking parts off to scrap it.

Conversely I have a small collection of tools found in the road over the years that I presume had a similar fate but couldn't hang on. Two Snap on ratchet spanners, some wire strippers, a huge adjustable spanner, to name a few.

I "lost" my only cassette tool (nothing special a cheap one from a set) when I needed to do a drivetrain swap.

Went out and bought a new cassette tool, but it was a bit shit as the splines were really shallow, so I bought a Park one.

The old one turned up tucked behind the leg of my work bench

I now own three cassette tools

Lost a nice ice climbing glove when I moved house. I couldn't bring myself to bin the other one of the pair. Over the next 5 years, I alternately found the left but not the right, then found the right but not the left...

Eventually, I found them both and the pair was reunited.

Equally annoying is lost sports kit

Indeed.

1992 VERY purple Karrimor Alpinists 65 is somewhere in Dunblane. Last seen on a training evening just before Christmas at the cathedral.

Also, the where did you have it last question, ‘If I knew that, I’d not need to look!’

That suggests that you have a degree of common sense, unlike my MiL who regularly loses her purse and spend the next hour ringing every shop or café she's been in that day, ringing my wife to tell her she can't possibly do whatever they were meaning to do, ringing the bank to cancel cards, and then finds it in her handbag where it's been since she last used it.

Had my own half day of missing tools aguish yesterday, arrived at work and unable to use my d-lock or get in my locker, I'm sure you will all be thrilled to know I found my secondary key bunch by our home shed when I got back (having tried to cycle home a bit slower, hoping that by some miracle among all the recent storm litter, I might spot said bunch if I'd dropped them on way home on Monday).

Funny how things are always in the last place you look, I'm not senile enough yet to find something I was looking for and then continue to look for it. 😆

Ooh yes. Me.
I lost half of a Macgyver multi tool in a two hundred metre* stretch of muddy bridal way. It’s haunted me every since.
*=distance travelled before realising backpack was open after mechanical repair. I do still ride past the spot in the vain hope it’ll be ploughed up like treasure and return back to its rightful owner.
🙂

Lost a nice ice climbing glove when I moved house. I couldn’t bring myself to bin the other one of the pair. Over the next 5 years, I alternately found the left but not the right, then found the right but not the left…

Eventually, I found them both and the pair was reunited.

I hate losing tools most ... it just annoys me even if its one allan key I can replace from a set but I once checked in a rucksac + big bag and paid excess... it was all just packed in on weight/space at the end of 6 weeks camping and apart from some stuff like sleeping bag which was lost the worst part was having a flysheet but no inner, countless odd socks and half a stove etc. It seemed like almost everything was split between the 2 bags..

Not lost as such - I knew exactly where it was. But after a middle of the might emergency repair at Mountain Mayhem ileft my socket wrench by the car wheel.

Forgot to pick it up the next day, remembered half way home. I often think of my poor wrench rattling through the blades of a tractor towed grass cutter. I even went back and looked the following year, but it had probably been mowed half way across the field by then.

I feel a little bit sad every time I open the set, and see the empty wrench space (I use the smaller one with an adapter now). This was probably 10 years ago now.

I had a lovely 15mm campag butter spanner.... very little use for it these days, but lovely in the hand.

It was in our van when it was nicked. Whilst the insurers will pay for the van, they will not for a 25 year old spanner. Its loss is what upsets me (and they're upwards of £50 on ebay) more than the van.

Lost a nice ice climbing glove when I moved house. I couldn’t bring myself to bin the other one of the pair. Over the next 5 years, I alternately found the left but not the right, then found the right but not the left…

Eventually, I found them both and the pair was reunited.

im for ever losing one work glove so had the bright idea of buying a pack of 10 pairs the same so that I can always make a pair if any go missing.

i now have ten left gloves

reading about lost keys reminds me of a sort of heart warming episode.

Still at university, summer job in Edinburgh, rode motorbike (250RS) back to Elgin for weekend. I'm not a good rider, and crashed on the Dava (over cooked a left hand bend). Bounced along the verge, ditch and back out onto the road. Broke a few bits at the headlight and controls but nothing major. Rode on, on a straight bit further ahead I remember something hitting my boot. Got home, no key in ignition. Could still jump start it though.

Weekend at home nursing bruises, then headed back. Stopped to fill up tank - ah. No key (didn't't realise a screwdriver would have worked). Carried on back down road, slowed down where the object fell off, on other side of road - there was my keys in the verge. Filled with petrol at Grantown and head back down, then off to breakers yard to get new ignition cluster.

Sold it the next year once I graduated.

I had a Camelbak Eddie bottle in my bottle cage riding to work one day. The lid wasn't screwed on (it turned out) and fell off. Did t realise til I got to work and was then annoyed at having to buy a whole new bottle instead of a lid.

Months later, riding on the pavement I'd occasionally ride to work, I saw a bottle lid in the undergrowth...