Most common lost tools

10mm anything here, and usually something really useful at the time I need it.

I think it's funny how you can make a good guess on what brand of car people drive by their responses in this thread

For me it's 10s and 14s, just like the other Toyota guys.

10's, 14's, and hammers. I go through times when I can't find small screwdrivers, and other times when I can't get rid of them all. The sockets and hammers never come back, though.

At my apartment, a flashlight with battery power. They're all at around 1/2 candle power right now. I think I can see the individual electrons pulse between the batteries and bulbs.

At my dad's place, the air compressor attachment to add air to tires.

Tape measures for me too. And then I find them all a once, and have many mire than I need. I even have a "measurement devices" draw in my cabinet, but I still lose them.

Joey

10 & 13mm box wrenches. I always leave them on the workbench but they sneak under the hood to hitch rides or maybe escape. I've found a them in the driveway, on my street, and one managed to do 30 minutes around Summit Point and jump out just as I was parking. The rest must have made it to freedom.

GRTechguy said: Most common lost tools.

The one I need next.....

While working in a race shop, I eventually concluded that Sharpie markers (or any permenant markers) are incredibly unstable and have a half life on the order of minutes or an hour.

They simply disappear.

Clem

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: 10 & 13mm box wrenches. I always leave them on the workbench but they sneak under the hood to hitch rides or maybe escape. I've found a them in the driveway, on my street, and one managed to do 30 minutes around Summit Point and jump out just as I was parking. The rest must have made it to freedom.

I see a pixar feature film looming: "Tools" or "A Tool's Life" or something

I must be on the tail end of the wormhole...I lose 10s and 13s, buy the replacements, then get the original lost tools back.

I never loose stuff. I'm still on every tool that I got in a big set when I was 10. For a while, they would disappear for a day or so, then come back when dad cleaned out his toolbox, and found extras. Now I wrap a piece of tape around every tool, so everyone knows they are mine.

Gary and Jere refer to my toolbox as god, and fear the day something doesn't get put back in exactly the right spot.

Phillips head screw drivers. I have a drawer full of flat heads, but cannot keep track of their counter parts. I dunno.

10mm sockets, tape measures, and marking utensiles are pretty high on my list also.

At work I have a 6ft adhesive backed tape measure permanently attached to the surface of my work bench. Also my coworker taught me to tape magnets to the side of sharpies and stick them to any vertical metal surface. It increases their half-life from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks, totaly worth the cost of the magnets when you finally lose them.

Stuc wrote: I think it's funny how you can make a good guess on what brand of car people drive by their responses in this thread For me it's 10s and 14s, just like the other Toyota guys.

I don't lose the tools I use all the time. If I lost my 10s and 14s, I'd be stopped. Or forced to work on one of the British cars. The ones you use all the times are the ones you always know where they are.

Sharpies, yes. They live with the tape measures in a parallel dimension. I have a special Sharpie bin in my shop. It's either overflowing or empty, there is no middle ground.

914Driver wrote:

GRTechguy said: Most common lost tools.

The one I need next.....

Or the one I just had!

While I was in the Navy the tools were check-out to you where you signed in blood. then everything was inventoried every day. There would be strip searches to find missing tools, cavity searches, the whole 9 yards.

Because of that, I have my tools specifiacly orginized. My children each have a tool box with tools from my mother's basement (she has hd two husbands pass away, each with their own assortment of harbor freight tools). the kids don't get to touch my stuff but can lose, break, hit each other with any of the stuff from grandma.

I have lost a tape measure. But the one I replaced it with has hung around.

egnorant wrote:

914Driver wrote:

GRTechguy said:Most common lost tools.

The one I need next.....

Or the one I just had!

This is the truth!!! I don't ever permenately lose tools. I always find them later when I don't need it. But I often can't find the one I need at the time. And I am anal about tools have their certain place to be stored at and I try to put them back where I got them everytime.

For me its the 10mm and the 12mm. I've lost all the good ones and now fill in with lower quality stuff (Sears Companion brand). I can't ever recall using a 13mm!

I also misplace my claw hammer quite often, but always find it eventually. A couple of days ago i found it under one of the plants in a flower bed. Then I remembered throwing it out the hole the gable vent had been in. Now that I think of it, I threw out a brreaker bar too.

DirtyBird222 wrote: ON the other hand, I remember now that I lose 8mm sockets on Ridgelines and Pilots like it's my job. The Air filter box screws love to pop these off my electric drill and throw them somewhere into the engine bay abyss

You need a locking 1/4" drive extension, I picked up a few of these and my 10mm consumption dropped by half.

Tommy Suddard wrote: Gary and Jere refer to my toolbox as god, and fear the day something doesn't get put back in exactly the right spot.

Funny you should mention that... when we would have tech-days at the garage for the MINI or Volvo clubs, I eventually got to the point where I asked people NOT to put tools away, but instead on a tray next to the box. It just made my life easier... rather than have them 'thinking' they were helping me out but instead driving me nuts as I searched for an hour looking for something that was 3" out of place...

Good point about Sharpies... especially the silver ones...

Tape measures, electrical tape, and screw drivers. I don't know why, but those always come up missing.

pinchvalve wrote: I don't loose tools, I break them or throw them into the woods in a fit of anger.

+18362810 hahahaha.

I lost my huge Snap-on 1/2" drive ratchet that is about 18" long complete with 27mm socket. How did I loose something that damn big? This was 20+ years ago. I also lost a 3/8" Snap-on ratchet without a socket when I replaced the watter pump on my fathers truck. after the job I was missing the ratchet but all sockets were accounted for. What scares me is my old stuf has my social security number on them. Now when I have idle time in the shop I go thru drawers and gring the number off of tools.

I lost my 3/8" ratchet recently. I can't for the life of me figure out where it is and the worst thing is, that's the most important one

One side has a sharp point the other side has a 90 degree sharp point . I have even looked at the ceiling for them . If tools are left in front of a mirror in your shop or work space they will get sucked in . I find tools on the road . Good ones !