[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Disappearing tools... (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 6/8/2010 10:01:33 PM EDT
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Amazing how many of them there are. I've had skill saws, drills, batteries and chargers, hand tools (millions), bars, saws alls, clamps, sledgehammers, etc that were there one day, gone the next. And it's not as if I'm in the habit of losing shit, I still have some tools that I bought 20 years ago. And I do tend to keep pretty good tabs on my tools, since they're my mealticket. I'm stingy about who I loan out too. But shit. just. disappears. Are there gnomes? giant tool stealing vagina vortexes? wtf? What tools have you lost, or had appropriated by a "more entitled" individual? Tell me it's not just me.
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| I lost a fullsize shop-vac. Last i recall i was cleaning out my truck, got done, wheeled it back into garage, and a week or so later noticed it was missing. Called around to all the fam, nobody had dropped by to borrow it. Wif unit didnt know anything about it. Not really mad about it though, it was a little older, now i've got one of the more convenient wall mount units. But ya, poof, gonzo, never heard from again. Wierd thing is i keep my garage secured, and of all the things out there for someone to come and "aquire", why not pick the grand or so worth of easy transportable, untraceable, power tools? |
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With enough money sunk into tools to buy a house if I had saved it all, I can honestly say I don't lose many.
I sometimes misplace them, but they never completely dissappear. I just don't like it when co-workers or my kids borrow them and put them back in the wrong spot. With that many tools, you can go forever without finding them if someone puts something away in the wrong drawer. |
I guess I'm lucky that mine only disappear for about five minutes or so. I'll set one down then thirty seconds later I go to use it again and it's disappeared. They usually stay gone until I get up for another tool then they magically appear almost where I left them. 
ETA: They haul ass even faster if I put them somewhere where I know I'll be able to find them later. |
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I don't really lose tools, other than not returning them to the toolbox and finding them under my desk or in a drawer.
That said, some crackhead broke into my house a few years ago and stole my power drill. I found it on the neighbor's porch across the street. They didn't think to steal the charger and when they found the batteries to be dead, they left it on the steps. |
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I engrave my last 4 on all of my tools.
My old man is a jet mechanic, and he does the same thing. That way, when he accuses me of hanging on to one of his tools, I can point at my last 4 and he can shut up. I've also caught him with several of my sockets in his tool box. I don't think it was intentional, but it was funny to call him out on it. |
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Quoted:
Amazing how many of them there are. I've had skill saws, drills, batteries and chargers, hand tools (millions), bars, saws alls, clamps, sledgehammers, etc that were there one day, gone the next. And it's not as if I'm in the habit of losing shit, I still have some tools that I bought 20 years ago. And I do tend to keep pretty good tabs on my tools, since they're my mealticket. I'm stingy about who I loan out too. But shit. just. disappears. Are there gnomes? giant tool stealing vagina vortexes? wtf? What tools have you lost, or had appropriated by a "more entitled" individual? Tell me it's not just me. Trolls, trolls have a mineral deficiency that can only be treat by the consumption of certain grades of steel, ironically enough the more expensive the tool the greater the amount of the necessary mineral the tool possesses.  For future information gnomes steal the matching sock that is missing from your set, and drink that those missing cans of beer that just seem to vanish in your refrigeration.
MOTHERFUCKING TOOL EATING TROLLS Those fuckers are worst than those sock stealing beer snurching gnomes.
There is nothing worse than an incomplete socket set, and you know the universal truth is, the one socket you use the most is one of the ones that is missing. It's absence mocks you every time you reach for it when you are working on a project. Fucking trolls. |
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this might be my biggest pet peave/worry. All of my tools (and I have ALOT) are in my dad's shop back in CA where there is a ton of traffic from any number of my dads "employees". Turns out that my sister just found my hidden key set for my box the other day and called me to tell me she was "borrowing" my hack saw. I view this as the beginning of the end.
My only hope is I am moving to take a new job and hopefully it works out to be long term and I can retrieve said tools and the 6 ball bearing boxes I have them in. ––-actually, my dad has recently sequestered my stainless steel box setup for his garage (which is different than the shop)––-I have no idea if I will ever get them back 
The one consolation is that my main box is bigger than my dads  . I got lucky a few years ago at costco when they had the Torin set on sale for like $1100. The thing is taller than I am.
Luckily, I am heading back in a week or so to take stock of what has happened to my collection. I really wish I could bring myself to live in CA again, because my dads shop is badass, as it has every tool imaginable and has a two post lift and a muffler rack. 
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When I was 18 my mom bought me a Craftsman 18V cordless drill and circular saw set for christmas. I got home from christmas dinner and my garage door had been busted open and guess what was gone? Fresh snow that night..drove straight down our driveway right to the garage..broke in and then left. the nerve of some thieves is unbelievable. |
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It's always fun to forget where you lay your tools down while you are using them. Lay the screw driver on top of the ladder and climb down to do something else, look for the screw driver and then curse a storm up while I go get another screw driver. I may start a project with one screw driver, but will end it with about 5 or 6... Then there was the time I lost my nice linesman pliers... I built my pups a dog house and for some reason had that particular tool on me and after that I never saw it again. I'll be damned if 6 years later I was taking that dog house out and found my pliers sitting on the roof of the dog house where I left them (roof facing away from yard). A little less for wear and some rust but I have my trusty linesman pliers back! |
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Quoted: It's always fun to forget where you lay your tools down while you are using them. Lay the screw driver on top of the ladder and climb down to do something else, look for the screw driver and then curse a storm up while I go get another screw driver. I may start a project with one screw driver, but will end it with about 5 or 6... Then there was the time I lost my nice linesman pliers... I built my pups a dog house and for some reason had that particular tool on me and after that I never saw it again. I'll be damned if 6 years later I was taking that dog house out and found my pliers sitting on the roof of the dog house where I left them (roof facing away from yard). A little less for wear and some rust but I have my trusty linesman pliers back! You didn't look at the back of your dog house for 6 years!? |
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My reason for lost tools no longer lives with me. My son is on his own in another state. However when he was home. everything had legs.
His first full time jump was as a construction laborer. I bought him all the tools he needed for the job and a good tool belt. My Dad did the same for me. It did not take long before i started missing stuff. Then he started doing side jobs. Then things real vanished. At one point I was outside with him and he got into the trunk of his car. MY 3 cell mag light was the first thing i saw. Then 50ft of air hose, 2 hammers 1 hack saw, 1 hand saw, my drill bit set, misc wrenches, all my screw drivers. I think his car raised 6 inches by the time all my tools were cleaned out of that trunk. 
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I feel your pain. Drives me insane.
Couple of weeks ago, I was working on something and needed some vise-grips. I own like 6 of the damn things, but not a single one could be found. I bought a 2-pack the other day, and to my surprise the new ones no longer have the little release levers. WTF? My darn kids get into my tools, use them, then leave them whereever they were working on something. I must not beat them enough. 
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I was missing my tin snips. I found them today. We were walking our dogs on the hiking trail I cut in the woods and my Wife said here cut some weeds. She handed me my tin snips. They have been in her garden bag. She used them on weeds, She did say they did not do a very good job on the larger stuff you had to work around the weed if they did not fit in the jaws. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
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Look man, I'm not calling BS. But we all have anger issues and just because you throw shit and can't find it does not mean you have gnomes in your kit. I been there man. I been there. ETA I've learned anything with a vagina will lose/steal/break every tool you have. |
| I bought a Fluke multimeter, not an expensive one but still....it's friggin' bright yellow and I haven't seen it for a year. I figure I'll run across it again but I have a nagging feeling I might have let my contractor's son borrow it once when he was checking some things for us...and it just migrated into his stuff...not intentionally....just the usual chaos. |
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When I did assembly work at a factory at the end of the shift I put all my tools back in my tool box. Every tool had a specifc place in the box and it took only a second to see that a tool was missing. Then I would remember "Joe Blow" came by and wanted to borrow whatever tool that was missing, so I would track his ass down and get the tool back before shift change. Hell, I would have them leave their spot in line at the clock just to make them get my tool(s) back from their work area.
Didn't take long for people to decide I was an asshole when it came to loaning out tools, but in 12 years I only lost one. I dumbassed around and left a very nice 3/8" drive S&K ratchet in a crate bound for Germany.... somewhere Hans has a nice rachet...
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If I had a dollar for every tape measure and flash light I've lost the past 6 years I could probably retire. If I had the $40 the Surefire Nitrolon G-2s that my father had borrowed and lost , money for the batteries that he burned up by turning the G-2s on and forgetting to turn off I could probably buy another Glock or pay for some more firearms classes. He wonders why all I will let him borrow anymore are the plug in the wall rechargeable flashlights. Funny how those $12 things never disappear, 4 years later and I still have them. But let him get ahold of a G-2 and I might as well buy another one, odds are I will never see it again. |
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Yes there are gnomes that take this stuff. Not shitting you. I have a 10x16 shop with my tools that I use for building black powder guns, I swear stuff will go missing for a month or so. NOTHING GETS TAKEN OUT OF THE SHOP, yet it still finds a place to hide. Hell my pops has a shop out back for cars ( 2200sqft, and the building of them ) and we have a 4th roll away just for spares. Stuff get's " lost " all the time, it usually turns up the next time I clean the place up. I used to be real bad at misplacing them, now that I have the shop set up right there are only 4 places where I will set a tool down, the rolling table, welding bench, table next to the lift or in the tool box, now it's my pops that loses stuff as he get's older, he'll just pop shit down anywhere. |
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I can lose any ratchet extension by putting it in my tool box. My tape measure is really a port that opens up above the sale bin at Ace hardware.
I have learned to never buy expensive tools. 5 chinese wrenches beat 1 lost american wrench. Sears has ratcheting open end wrenches now. I want some in SAE and metric. |
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My truck got broken into about 3 weeks ago.
(3) 18v DeWalt drills 18v DeWalt circular saw 18v DeWalt reciprocating saw 7 batteries 3 chargers Senco drywall auto-feed screw gun Paslode gas angle finish nail gun Plum Bob laser level Craftsman laser level Bosch jigsaw 50 piece router bit set Bosch electric hand plane Rigid laminate trimmer Dremel multi-max Husky socket set (2) Hitachi framing nail guns Makita circular saw Porter Cable D grip router DeWalt impact wrench DeWalt heavy duty drill Bosch jamb saw Rigid belt sander Rotozip drywall cutout tool Freud biscuit joiner They also swiped a bunch of hand tools. |
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My truck got broken into about 3 weeks ago. (3) 18v DeWalt drills 18v DeWalt circular saw 18v DeWalt reciprocating saw 7 batteries 3 chargers Senco drywall auto-feed screw gun Paslode gas angle finish nail gun Plum Bob laser level Craftsman laser level Bosch jigsaw 50 piece router bit set Bosch electric hand plane Rigid laminate trimmer Dremel multi-max Husky socket set (2) Hitachi framing nail guns Makita circular saw Porter Cable D grip router DeWalt impact wrench DeWalt heavy duty drill Bosch jamb saw Rigid belt sander Rotozip drywall cutout tool Freud biscuit joiner They also swiped a bunch of hand tools. Death is too good for that fucking animal. |
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Quoted: My truck got broken into about 3 weeks ago. (3) 18v DeWalt drills 18v DeWalt circular saw 18v DeWalt reciprocating saw 7 batteries 3 chargers Senco drywall auto-feed screw gun Paslode gas angle finish nail gun Plum Bob laser level Craftsman laser level Bosch jigsaw 50 piece router bit set Bosch electric hand plane Rigid laminate trimmer Dremel multi-max Husky socket set (2) Hitachi framing nail guns Makita circular saw Porter Cable D grip router DeWalt impact wrench DeWalt heavy duty drill Bosch jamb saw Rigid belt sander Rotozip drywall cutout tool Freud biscuit joiner They also swiped a bunch of hand tools. To think I was pissed when 3 rails of Snap-On sockets, and 2 ratchets "disappeared". |
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With enough money sunk into tools to buy a house if I had saved it all, I can honestly say I don't lose many. I sometimes misplace them, but they never completely dissappear. I just don't like it when co-workers or my kids borrow them and put them back in the wrong spot. With that many tools, you can go forever without finding them if someone puts something away in the wrong drawer. Exactly ..........took the words right outa me mouth. I tell folks ; " If ya cant remember exactly where you got it , just lay it the top of my box and I'll put it away." |
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We lost $200,000 worth of tools on a job in NE OH. Dewalt 18V cordless battery drills were favorites along with Metabo 6" angle grinders, Sawzalls of all flavors, portabands, you name it. Fuckers even stole fall protection equipment like harnesses and retractable lanyards which are not cheap by any means. I found some things hidden by a roll-off but of course no one knew how it got there. We caught one guy (Electrician) putting items in his truck and fired him. Another person was caught but was able to prove the tools he was putting in his vehicle were actutally his. Why was he bringing his own tools? Because everyone was stealing what was needed. Worst was we had Sunday off and when we came back on Monday one of the rented six pack welders was stolen. They left the frame but removed the individual welders and took off with a few hundred feet of welding lead. And while all this was going on we asked the client if we could review their camera video and they always had the same answer - NO. On just about every job we lose somethings. Usually it's something small that disappears. I found a guy pitching a 4 1/2" grinder into the trash one time and when I asked him why he said he did it because he was embarrassed he misused it and broke it and didn't want to tell anyone. Fucking kids. |