Lost and found tools

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Coppersmith

Senior Member
Location
Tampa, FL, USA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I actually lost a steel stud punch tool when I finished my basement. It is behind one of the walls, I just don't know which one. Didn't realize it until the walls were painted and it just wasn't worth it to try and find it.

Sigh
A heavy duty magnet could help you find it.
 

cpickett

Senior Member
Location
Western Maryland
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
I worked for a factory that was located in Florida, and I knew all of the guys in the Test area, which was always the last stop before shipping. When doing a startup at a job site here in California, I opened a cabinet and found a clamp-on meter and sack lunch, probably 2 months or more old because the site wasn’t ready when it shipped. I knew who it belonged to so I had it shipped back to him, including the sack lunch, mold and all, with a picture showing where I found it. Next time I went back to the factory, that picture was hanging in the break room as a “motivational poster” reminding employees to double check everything before shipping.

Jraef,
Between this and your post about finding the ladder in a drive cabinet, are you disappointed when you open a cabinet and there's nothing in there that doesn't belong?
 

retirede

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
I can’t remember ever finding a tool that I’ve lost, but I’ve found several that I didn’t lose.
I found a nice pair of Snap On adjustable pliers wedged in between the radiator and AC condenser on a van I’d just had serviced. If I hadn’t found it, it likely would have caused damage eventually.
 

Jraef

Moderator, OTD
Staff member
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
Jraef,
Between this and your post about finding the ladder in a drive cabinet, are you disappointed when you open a cabinet and there's nothing in there that doesn't belong?
LOL! In addition to those, I had one I posted here a couple of years ago where there was a NEMA 1 MCC in a washdown area and the VFDs had mushrooms growing on them because of all of the moisture and vegetable dust in the air (it's an onion and garlic plant). So yeah, actually I think I kind of do get a little let down when it's just something "normal"...

Oh, and snakes. Several rattlesnakes over the years. Those are fun...
 

__dan

Senior Member
My help dropped a 3/8 drive socket wrench into a bin of hay pellets. A few months latter they got it back after it traveled through several augers on the way to the hammer mill. The magnets caught it just prior to.
A part let go on the harp cutter. That's the thing that cuts the clay slug with two hydraulic pistons, cylinders, fed from a 40 hp 3000 psi hyd pump. Never mind that the factory original pump was 10 or 20 hp.

The hyd pistons (cylinders) have a rod end with a magically hardened rod through the end, that gets held down to the cutter frame with machined parts like a round clamp that gets bolted to the frame.

I was walking by and found those machined hold down rod clamps made to bolt on, just lying on the floor. I figured they may need them, they looked OK with some gouging.

So I find the mechanic and give him these parts I found. He's talking in a heavy Russian accent, actually trained as an electrical engineer in Russia but was mechanic in the brick plant. He's saying they come from the Pug Mill (giant clay extruder two stories tall). I'm like 'oh great, you've got spare parts for the Pug Mill'.

But he's repeating himself in heavy Russian 'no, they come from the Pug Mill'.

I finally figured out what he was saying. They broke off the harp cutter, rod hold down clamps, got picked up by the waste augers, waste belt, then back to the Pug Mill and back out through the clay extruder (driven by a 200 hp electric motor geared down to ~ 1 rpm extruder by a gear reduction box that was two stories tall). The gouging on the clamp part I saw probably came from the extruder. It had broken before, made the round trip through the extruder, bolted back in place, broke again and found laying on the floor.

We bolted the rod end (rod) back to the cutter frame with the found parts so the cutter would go up and down again. I found the parts on the floor before I knew what was broken or where they went.

I've said it before, never seen more suffering in a workforce.
 

readydave8

re member
Location
Clarkesville, Georgia
Occupation
electrician
Lost my 1/2 emt offset kicker

went back to all recent jobs where I might have left it, didn't find it

Found a used one for $60 so I bought it

Bought a new truck a year later, found original kicker while emptying old truck. It was in the correct compartment, where I had looked for it several times, just shifted and behind other stuff

Now I got 2🥴
 

masterinbama

Senior Member
Found a real nice phase rotation meter in a brand new Liebert datawave I was uncrating. Called Liebert to see if they were missing one. They said they had already replaced it, told me Merry Christmas.

Sent from my LML211BL using Tapatalk
 

oldsparky52

Senior Member
Lost my 1/2 emt offset kicker

went back to all recent jobs where I might have left it, didn't find it

Found a used one for $60 so I bought it

Bought a new truck a year later, found original kicker while emptying old truck. It was in the correct compartment, where I had looked for it several times, just shifted and behind other stuff

Now I got 2🥴
Tim to hire someone to work that 2nd one? :)
 

junkhound

Senior Member
Location
Renton, WA
Occupation
EE, power electronics specialty
1960, teenage lifeguard at summer camp. Central IL, typical 2 acre pond with zero visibility muddy type water. Dropped 8" cresent wrench 12 ft underwater while free diving changing wire clip on steel cable to 55 gal bbl holding a raft in place. Repeated dives could not find in the mud.

Years later pond was drained, there was the wrench, right where I thought it was but sure could not find it underwater. One big rust ball.
 

hoody32

Member
Location
norwalk, ct
I left a brand new n95 dust mask in a customers pool bathroom. When I came back two days later to take delivery of a 48Kw generator, it was still there! I felt like I hit the lottery, as there is nobody selling n95 masks right now.
 
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