Lost tools..
 

Which tools do you find yourself always losing or misplacing?

I find myself going through 1/2" -3/8" adapters like crazy. Meanwhile I must have about thirty 9/16 sockets. Dont know where they all came from

I always find...
 

that I lose the tools I need the most. My wife gets mad at me because I buy a new tool because I cant find the old one. So when I clean the garage(which is not very often)I come across the original ones. :). However a second Porsche would be nice as a backup:D. As the old saying goes, my wife doesnt understand me. :cool:

10mm sockets & wrenches. 3/8" drive ratchets...

I always try to put my tools away right after I'm done, but sometimes they still get lost temporarily.

I try hard to put each tool back in the proper place unless I am going to keep using it immediately. I spend more time looking for a tool that I put down in some stupid place than doing the work.

I had a buddy helping me during part of my El Camino engine swap. I could not have done the swap without his help and experience. He was only there for a couple of hours total but I spent a ton of time looking for sockets and open end wrenches. He would use a tool and put it down right there. It seems like most of my tools were out of the tool chest and on the floor. After he left I spent an hour just finding and putting up my tools.

Open end wrenches of all sizes. I go through em like crazy!

Phillips head screw drivers and pliers.

Phillips screwdrivers..... I have tools in in several boxes in different locations. The "good" phillips screwdrivers migrate all over my shop and glove boxes.

x2 on screwdrivers

No idea where they go, worse than socks in the drier.

I have to have at least 50 various screwdrivers strewn about, never a problem finding those.

I guess I missplace tools for a day, but for the most part I have tools that I bought back in the early 70s. I have lost very few tools in the last 35 years.

If I'm working on a long-term project my tools could be scattered around the garage for months.

The other day I found some screwdrivers in my paintball gun case. I hadn't used it in years. Score! It's like Christmas.

Just last night when looking in a tool storage cabinet for my dremel tool case, I found a "new still in the box" small triangular head detail sander I bought several years ago.

WTF is it with 10mm? I have the same problem. I've taken to buying two 10mm sockets at a time and placing one in my gun safe. My tape measure has evolved into a living being with legs and escape/evasion skills too.

I don't think I've seen my tape measure in years...

That's why I have 4 or 5.

I find that a lot of times my tools have gone missing because someone used them for a project in the house and didn't put them back.

That's my thinking for utility knives and tape measures. I found 2 utility knives in the same toolbox the other day and another on the bench. If course, I was looking for the 100 pack of blades for the other utility knife at the time. Still cant find the blades.

I lose my mini maglite all the time as well.

A few weeks ago I could not find a 1/2" - 3/8" inch adapter and I looked everywhere. Makes me so friggin' frustrated. Drove to town, bought a new one, come home, go into my shop and the first thing I see in my tool cart is a 1/2" - 3/8" adapter - right in plain sight.

I have so many standard wrenches between 3/8 and 5/8 it's a joke. But I can never find 13 mm or 1/2" sockets.

I spend too much time wandering around the shop looking for things, around and around, where is that? cuss cuss Where is it? And then I start blaming the wife and kids (to myself, of course).

My tape measure only reappears when I don't need it. It seems to know when to show up. I'd like to blame my missing tools on others, but I'm the only one who uses them. So I blame the tools.

I have a bad habit of crawling out from under the car with a tool in my hand and walking over to the work bench etc. to get/do something and slide back under the car to discover the tool i need is........missing. Spend a lot of wasted time retracing my foot steps.
Very seldom actually lose a tool.....just takes awhile to find it.

Dad had a high $$$ Holley Carb screw driver. It was bent for a reach around and had a knob that you turned to turn the blade.

It got lost when I still lived at home. I got the blame for it. ( My car at the time had an Edelbrock Carb.

2+ years later my kid brother broke the trans on our Dads 428 CJ powered '68 F-250 truck drag racing it down at the BrotherHOOD raceway in LB. Seems that 35kmiles and countless 11:50 runs in a pickup the Holley carb screwdriver shows up on top of the trans when the trans was removed.

1/2 & 13mm sockets & 10mm box combos. Yup

For some reason I have tape measures up the wazoo. One thing i never have to look for. They are everywhere.
I also have a bad habit of wearng a tool belt when doing construction stuff, and never putting tools back in the belt when I use them . I'll just lay them down somewhere.

I used to be anal , and neat, but I am always jumping from job to job, and never seem to have all my tools back in the box. I have doubles/triples of all the common stuff, but the one thing that I am always loosing, is cordless trouble lights. I always leave them hanging under cars, and then forget. I just got back a nice snap on one, that was hanging under a customers toyota truck for the last 3 months. Threw it back on the charger, and it lit right up.
Pocket screw drivers are another one. I probably have 10 of them, but I bet I could not find 2 if you asked me to .

13 mm & 17 mm wreches !!!

I believe the process is called Transmogrification. :rolleyes:

Ditto on 10mm sockets.

Sigh
Les

On the 10mm socket thing, my rails for my Recaros are just narrow enough that they have to have a really thin wall 10mm to get it in there.

Everytime I lose one, I pretty much have to buy a complete $7 made in taiwan socket set to get the cheap thin one I need. I can't really justify paying for a high grade thin wall specific socket if I'm just gonna lose it again. :D

It's kind of like the missing sock when removing clothes from the dryer. I figure it's proof on an unseen dimension.

I seem to "lose" a lot less tools now that I have a good rollaway. But then, since the P-car left here, I don't use the tools much.

Taking a break every 20 minutes to clean tools and put them in a central location tends to keep me from tossing them thru the drywall.

Tool limbo?? Does that mean when I die, some spirit will hand me a box and say" hey you lose these". I'll look in the box , " holy crap, theres the snap ring pliers I was lookin for.."

I totally agree. !

For years I did the "where is the heck is that tool I just used 5 minutes ago" and I wasted a ton of time looking for tools. Then I just forced myself to put the tool back in the proper spot in the tool chest. I organized my tool chest and now the tools have a spot that they go back to. I can put my hand on it in seconds and no more searching. The seconds it takes to put it away is much less time than wondering around looking for a dang tool.

I still find myself setting a tool down in the dumbest places. I carried my 3/8 socket drive into the bathroom with me and I was about convinced the aliens from outer space changed from abducting people to abducting my tools.

pocketknives :(

just lost my Case. bummed about it.

Boy, I dig that! I'd feel naked without the 3 bladed Case in my pocket. It was a birthday gift from Cindy...

The tools can usually be replaced with a quick trip to Sears...but the Case Cindy gave me has stag scales...India no longer allows the export of Stag antlers. Kind of silly, since the antlers are shed...no animal killed for the material.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1324061476.jpg

really bummed. my stepdad gave me mine. i managed to keep it unlost for a year!! going to tear thru my house this weekend. MIA since last Sat..not looking very promising.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1324061902.jpg

On another tool note, I own 5 or so 3/8" ratchets, 3, 1/2" ratchets and 2, 1/4" ratchets.

It saves a TON of time when you're under a car to just have several ratchets set up as you need them.

At work I am constantly setting down 10 in 1 screwdrivers and lineman's pliers... at least every couple months I get a new screwdriver and a couple times a year I need to replace my Kleins... Around the house I'm not too bad. I only work in a couple areas so it isn't hard to find my tools unless my wife has been using them. ;)

Hope you find it. I went through the single blade lockback stage, but once I started carrying one of these? Well, they are just so damned handy...sometimes it takes a while to realize the old time designs last because they work well.

If you need a replacement:
Smoky Mountain Knife Works - home of the World's largest knife showplace

Good tip! Also a good reason to buy MORE TOOLS! :D

The one place I have had a few tools vanish is when I am working in my attic. I kow that somewhere up there are several tools that are hiding underneath the insulation.

Do you know anybody with a metal detector?

Pencils and tape measures. I buy them in bulk before my job starts. when I show up, you can pretty much find pencils ON the countertops or the floor. Once I am done with what I am doing, I will put it down and off to answer another question. There it sits. Same with the tape measure. I do not put it on top of my ears.