anyone lose a tool, buy a replacement, then find it?

[jeffmoss26]

This has happened to me twice now! I lost 2 Klein screwdrivers over the years on wiring jobs. Promptly replaced them, only to go back to the same customer a year later and find my missing tools (I mark mine with orange tape). Surely I can't be the only one!

 

[sberry]

I do this on occasion but they are such common items I need duplicates anyway. I did it with 1/2 deep sockets a while back, went to the well and had trouble finding one, bought 2 more and wasn't long after they show up again.
I am still looking for a deep 15 impact which has been replaced. Right now I am on the hunt for one of my lights and a battery been missing for a couple weeks, its a 200$ deal.

 

[APEowner]

Often. Also, reading glasses, coffee cups and....what were we talking about?

 

[JunkYardDawg]

"Anyone lose a tool, buy a replacement, then find it?"

HEY! I might not have Alzheimer's but at least I don't have Alzheimer's!

 

[crerus75]

You have any idea how many tape measures I have? I have a habit of placing them in hell-holes and then bitching about how "someone took my tape measure!" Pick up another one on the way home, clean up the shop, find another five or six, put them back where they belong, start the process again.

I also have a habit of collecting consumables like tape, sandpaper, razor blades, etc. because I always think I need more. I don't of course, but my brain is spring-loaded to the "let me buy this while I'm here" position.

 

[crerus75]

"Anyone lose a tool, buy a replacement, then find it?"

HEY! I might not have Alzheimer's but at least I don't have Alzheimer's!

Alzheimer's isn't so bad. You're always meeting new people.

 

[Dirtydan69]

When I used to smoke cigarettes i would lose them and leave them burnibg somewhere all the time. Dangerous really when you think about it.

 

[PJNJ]

Flashlights, razor knives, screwdrivers, tape measures and drillbits to name a few.

 

[3 Gun Shooter]

More times than I want to think about.

 

[hawaiiysr]

im missing a few key sockets and wrenches. 9/16, 5/8, i dont want to buy replacements cause i know they will pop up. but man i tell you in the meat time its driving me fukn CRAZY!

 

[Journaler]

Story of my life.

Tape measures, speed squares, straight edges, drill/driver bits.

 

[larry_g]

My short term memory is failing fast. I can no longer remember where a tool is if I don't put it back where it belongs. I had a Weller soldering gun go missing and after two or so year it rose to the top of the pile again. I found it in the bottom of a hand carry tool box that I seldom use. No idea why it was there or the job I may have carried it to.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[JBradley500]

1/4" universal adapter. I broke my thermostat housing when I was using it, which made my instinctively throw my ratchet in anger. I lost the universal only and bought two more after I looked for hours. Of course the first time I swept the garage I found the original in the dirt pile. I still have no idea where it hid because my garage had concrete floors and was quite clean.

 

[captain14]

Yes , but are you buying a replacement tool or a backup tool?

The missing tool is just playing hide and seek from us.

 

[Davefr]

Alzheimer's isn't so bad. You're always meeting new people.

...and you can hide your own Easter eggs.

 

[TheEuronater]

Did this with work gloves. Found my old ones, and now my newer pair is missing a glove which I don't understand, because I don't usually misplace things, and two I usually Velcro the gloves together.

 

[bczygan]

How do you think I get my second, third and fourth sets?

 

[Cameo]

All the time. I spend 3 hours in the garage to do a 5 minute job. the rest of the time is looking for that thing I just set down. then I buy a new one the next day, and **** there it is.
most recent a 7/16 proto combo. last month. Found it 15 minutes after I got home with the new.

 

[leg17]

After I finish using the replacement, I think of a real 'good place' to put it so next time I'll know where to find it.

Guess what I find in that 'good place'.

C'mon, you know what I'm talkin about.

 

[TerryH]

Buying a new on is my preferred method for locating the old one.

 

[404]

I do this with car parts and consumables. Except I never really mislay the originals, I just forget I bought them. And I never think to look at the shelf or drawer they are in.

 

[Sam'sAutoParts]

Every time, best way to find a missing tool. Lol

I recently did this will a can of anti-seize I bought and new can and misplaced it the first time I used it, bought another one and found the first one the next day.

 

[Tellingthem]

All the time. I spend 3 hours in the garage to do a 5 minute job. the rest of the time is looking for that thing I just set down. then I buy a new one the next day, and **** there it is.
most recent a 7/16 proto combo. last month. Found it 15 minutes after I got home with the new.

This...oh so this. I swear I'll put something down somewhere specifically so I won't lose it. Proceed to immediately lose it. Spend hours looking in the same spot I just put it in and can't find it. Give up and go buy another one. Come home and find the lost one is sitting exactly where I left it.

I swear there is a hole in the space time continuum about 2 feet in front of me where things will vanish into other dimensions for some certain amount of time and then magically reappear!

 

[thegroundpounder99]

I had a socket shoot off a swivel and looked and looked and couldn't find it. Snap On came so replaced.....it showed up a couple weeks later.


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[66354dream]

...and you can hide your own easter eggs.

lmao!!!

 

[Toolfool]

Went to do a mortise lock today. Cut the mortise for the lock body, set my jig and routed the mortise for the lock faceplate, then spent the next half hour searching through every box, bag and drawer in my truck for my corner chisel. Ended up chiseling the corners by hand. Got home and ordered a new corner chisel from Amazon. I just know the old one will show up before the new one !!

 

[Jazz1]

Truck mechanics have a way of leaving crescent wrenches on the top of engines..I found 2 on top of my 60 series that had rode all the way from St Louis MO to home! I have 7 crescent wrenches. Never bought ONE!

 

[Kent_B]

That woud explain the three 25' Stanley tape measures bouncing around this place.

 

[monster1]

No, but every time I clean my garage it's like Christmas. This weekend I found my right mechanics glove, pry bar and cd disk I had been looking for forever.

 

[Old Steamer]

Often. Also, reading glasses, coffee cups and....what were we talking about?

Flashlights, razor knives, screwdrivers, tape measures and drillbits to name a few.

All the above and then some...

Flashlights are the one that go missing the most for me.

 

[Old Steamer]

I swear there is a hole in the space time continuum about 2 feet in front of me where things will vanish into other dimensions for some certain amount of time and then magically reappear!

Exactly!

I just wish every other thing I had lost I the last 15 years would reappear at the same time!

 

[ssentt]

YEP a couple times.

 

[ChevyEFI]

Volt meter.

Now I have My Sunpro that I prefer,, a HF at the other end of the garage, and another I leave in the house.

I don't like duplicates usually, so I avoid this situation most of the time.

 

[jeffmoss26]

Went to do a mortise lock today. Cut the mortise for the lock body, set my jig and routed the mortise for the lock faceplate, then spent the next half hour searching through every box, bag and drawer in my truck for my corner chisel. Ended up chiseling the corners by hand. Got home and ordered a new corner chisel from Amazon. I just know the old one will show up before the new one !!

Are you a locksmith?

 

[Jason280]

I'd hoped that would happen when I lost a Snap On 3/8" drive deep well 10mm socket, but it still hasn't reappeared (and I bought the replacement months ago). Still have no idea how I could have lost it...

 

[Hammer1963]

Daily! On occasion I'll find one of my tools in a repeat customers car in the trunk. I sometimes think people are just screwing with me and are hiding my tools only to find that I have left them in the oddest places. It explains why I have multiple 10mm 1/4" drive sockets . . . . . .

 

[The Cobbler]

HAppens al the time, 2 that come to mind...

Was positive I left a framing square at a customers house, they said : No, if you would have I would have let you know" I could remember the spot that I left it. Oh well, that's life. A year later I was in a boiler room of an apt building I used to work in , there on the wall was my square. A light went on, I had been there replacing some suspended ceiling tiles while I was doing the job where I thought I had left it.

Bought a new pair of tile nippers after ripping everything apart and couldn't find mine. Get to the job start setting up and find the original ones, I think they were in the tray of the wet saw ...

 

[Farmall 1066]

Years ago I lost an almost new pair of Snap On Hl138 pliers on a service call. They had a distinctive burn from being dropped across a battery. At the time, these were $50-60. Bought a new pair and wrote it up to bad luck and disorganization.
About 5 years later, the farmer whose place I'd been working at died, and I went to his farm sale. On a hayrack, in a beer flat of no-name junk tools, laid my pliers. Bought them back for $5, and they've been with me ever since.

 

[egnorant]

I have lost a tool, bought a replacement, found the original tool before unpacking the new tool, then later lost the original tool again, could not remember the "someplace safe" that I put the replacements and had to buy another replacement!

I am sure this is not the first or fortieth time as I have multiples of way too many items!
12 hacksaws, 4 speed squares, tape!! don't even!!

Bruce

 

[TK-421]

As my great-grandpa used to say, though I'm paraphrasing, if you go to find a tool and you can't find it, then you don't have enough. I want to say that Grandpa said he had something like 40+ tape measures, and tons of other tools, when they were going through his stuff after he passed away.