What Tools Have You Misplaced/Lost?

[Maui]

There is a discussion going on about what tools people have had stolen over the years. I thought it would be interesting to know how many people have simply misplaced or lost their tools instead. I'll be the first. I moved to my new house over 3 years ago and for the life of me I still can't find my Milwaukee Sawzall. It has to be in the house somewhere, but I can't seem to figure out where it is. On a related note, I have a threaded extension for my deck umbrella that I last saw when I moved in 2006. And the umbrella can't be set up without the extension. This year, after over 10 years later I finally found it wrapped up in moving paper leaning against my garage wall. This is probably the longest time span between when I knew something was lost and when I finally found it again.

What tools have you misplaced and how long did it take you to find them?

Maui

 

[DadsTools]

My vintage 9" Klein lineman pliers. One of my shops has swallowed it into the great beyond. Still haven't found it. I know no one stole it. The new Kleins are not quite the same, and hells bells if I'm going to spend that kind of money on an inferior version. So I went to HF (yes, on purpose), went through over a dozen they had on the shelf to find two that were made reasonably precise (and that was quite a project) to serve until my precious turns up. Been about a year now.

 

[6PTsocket]

There is a discussion going on about what tools people have had stolen over the years. I thought it would be interesting to know how many people have simply misplaced or lost their tools instead. I'll be the first. I moved to my new house over 3 years ago and for the life of me I still can't find my Milwaukee Sawzall. It has to be in the house somewhere, but I can't seem to figure out where it is. On a related note, I have a threaded extension for my deck umbrella that I last saw when I moved in 2006. And the umbrella can't be set up without the extension. This year, after over 10 years later I finally found it wrapped up in moving paper leaning against my garage wall. This is probably the longest time span between when I knew something was lost and when I finally found it again.

What tools have you misplaced and how long did it take you to find them?

Maui

I nust have misplaced something. I can't remember.

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[willjogervais]

Left my tailgate down and lost a new dewalt 20v 1/2 impact and a 3 day old set of snap on impact sockets..... awesome day. At least my 3/8 impact didn't fall out too!

 

[Dingleburry]

Cant keep a tape measure, roll of teflon tape or pens/markers for more then an hr. About all. Lost my only 2 adjustables, replaced with pliers wrench. Dont own an adjustable now. And a costco snap on branded flash ligh. Havent seen it in a couple years

 

[The Tool Tyrant]

Funny you should ask...I recently bought a new 7/8" carbide grit hole saw and 6" long x 1/4" masonry bit for the arbor to use when drilling a hole through a stucco / wood frame wall to install a compressor condensate drain for one of my employees.

I now need to to do the same for another employee and I can't find it anywhere...and I KNOW that I brought it back to my shop as I remember seeing it recently. I ordered another one from Mcmaster as no one stocks them, so I'm sure as soon as the new one arrives, I'll find the first one...Murphy's Law.

 

[Thumper68]

Last year I lost my Hi-Lift jack for about 3 months, found it leaning against a tree near where I used it last.

I was sure that I lost one of my 4' A frame ladders, looked for it for weeks before I noticed it hanging on the wall, I had done some reorganizing in the basement and put up a bracket for it to keep it out of the way, Ditto for the 2 drywall squares that are right next to the ladder.

A good case of out of sight out of mind.

 

[trackwelder]

Lots of flint strikers and tape measures.

 

[pajibson]

Snap on ratcheting screwdriver. Bounced out of a drawer and fell down to the bottom of the tool box moving between shops. A few years after I bought a replacement I took the bottom drawer out for some reason & found it. Also have you seen my 10mm?

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[becker_atc]

Always loosing 1/2", 9/16" and 10mm wrenches but they generally come back.

Lost fluke dmm once found it 2 months later hanging from magnet in big junction box at a station.


Sent via message in a bottle

 

[aka Larry]

A couple of winters ago I lost a DC power supply that I use when I'm messing around with 12V stuff on the kitchen table. I always put in on the top shelf in the laundry room when I'm done, but I couldn't find it a couple of weeks later. I looked everywhere (so I thought) in the house and out in the shop, but still was baffled as to where it went. I was convinced someone from the cleaning people my wife has over every two weeks had taken it, but that didn't really make any sense. It's not valuable or anything, just really handy.

Fast forward to this past summer and I was doing some cleaning out in the shop. I had placed a large plastic drop cloth over a rolling workbench to do some painting, but left it until I needed the space for something else. When I removed the drop cloth, it exposed a shelf underneath and....voila! I felt like such an idiot, but was really happy that I found it.

 

[landrover bodger]

yesterday i lost a 1/4 drive facom ratchet and 8mm socket .left it on the roof of a scrap car i was removing parts from . went in for lunch came back out dissapeared into thin air . this is in my own back yard with a 6ft fence around it only me and my wife there .

 

[JABgj]

Recently lost a new-ish pair of Channel-Lok needle nose pliers and a Wiha JIS #2 screwdriver. Just found the pliers but near as I can figure I donated the Wiha to the Pick-A-Part tool exchange program. Also am still missing an old Snap-on 3/8" ratchet, but am pretty sure it ain't coming back from where ever it lives now.

 

[Unruh]

I was at a boneyard pulling a couple parts for a project. Put my SK 3/8 socket set down somewhere. Didn't notice until I was unloading the pick-up. Someone was excited when they found that nice little green box sitting out there.

 

[davethorik]

I once had an Olds 88 as my dd and the window regulator broke. Being broke at the time, i just pushed the window up and clamped a pair of vise grips on the window track so it wouldn't fall.

Ended up totaling the car in a nasty accident (I was stopped on an interstate highway due to a backed up exit and got rear ended by a dodge ram 1500 4x4 going 70mph, guy didn't even hit his brakes was looking for cell phone on floor of truck). I scrapped the Olds and moved on.

About a year later was in a local JY and saw the Olds sitting in some tall weeds. The lightbulb came on upstairs and I rediscovered the vise grips in the door.

 

[M_George]

Tape measures for sure. I have six of them and still often have to search for one.
On the bright side, I always seem to find them while searching for something else.

 

[ozyborn]

There is a reason I have, as most of us do as well, a dozen or so tape measures. We set it down and it walks away and hides. We buy another one then trip over the old one. Then comes the day we find them all and they take up an entire shelf, for a while

 

[Teenager with old tools]

My sanity and almost every 10mm socket I own

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[BDT/NWMN]

Number one for Me would have to be tape measures. But number two is close behind: forgetting where in the shop I left My coffee cup. That trait was inherited from My Mom.

 

[Al Borland]

yesterday i lost a 1/4 drive facom ratchet and 8mm socket .left it on the roof of a scrap car i was removing parts from . went in for lunch came back out dissapeared into thin air . this is in my own back yard with a 6ft fence around it only me and my wife there .

Quoth the Raven "Now it's mine."

20 years from now, someone will cut down a large tree, and there will be a ratchet and a socket, 50 feet off the ground in an old nest.

 

[BoostAddiction]

I recently lost 2 sets of pliers. I bought another set that had one of them, but still need the short needle-nose that is missing.

So, I bought a 9-piece NWS plier set from Chad's Toolbox.

Which makes perfect sense, since I wanted to re-do the plier drawers anyway...

 

[Jason280]

About a year or two, I lost a 3/8" drive Snap On deep 10mm socket. Drove me nuts that I couldn't find it, especially considering I couldn't even figure where I might have misplaced it. Finally gave up, and ordered a replacement on eBay. Well, other day I was pulling a socket out of the tray, and there in a random location with my SAE sockets, sat the missing socket.

 

[zbrown]

Every single 10mm wrench or socket i have ever owned

 

[SuperCat]

A couple of years ago I had a series of problems with both my car and my truck, so each vehicle spent every other weekend with the nose in the garage. In the middle of that headache, my 8mm 12 point 3/8 drive short socket disappeared. I searched everywhere, and I haven't found it to this day. It didn't reappear even after I bought two more at the flea market to replace it. I didn't drop it, throw it, set it down in either engine compartment, use it as a spacer, hang it on a clamp, plug a hole with it, use it to press out anything, put it in my SAE set, place it on my bench, misplace it in my tool box, etc. It is the first tool I have ever lost. I have no idea what happened to it.

 

[engineer2]

Every single 10mm wrench or socket i have ever owned

Yup, and I own a lot of Hondas.

Lost a fuel injector tester. One of those simple time vs pressure ones. It's somewhere around here.

At any given time I have zero to 4 tape measures.

If I start a carpentry project, first thing is to sharpen 6 pencils, put two in my pockets, one behind my ear, and scatter the others around the job site. That way I won't have to look for a pencil for at least an hour.

 

[Logante]

I set a snap on screwdriver down at work and couldn't find it for two weeks. After I bought another to replace it I found it under my box. I was in a hurry to leave work and threw my tools down on my box and left that night.

 

[MushCreek]

Where does the stuff go? I've lost several tape measures, and they never re-surfaced. I lost a 4" hole saw while building my house. Again- never surfaced. I bought a 14 piece SK combination wrench set about 40 years ago. I've lost about half of them, and have no idea where they went. I don't take them off of our property. I recently shopped ebay to fill in the holes in the set.

The only tool I remember losing ( and I knew exactly where it went) was a 10 mm socket that fell while working on a Toyota. It fell into a hole in the frame rail, and there was no way to get it out, short of cutting up the car. I tried all sorts of magnets, etc., to no avail.

What I hate is realizing that it would have been much faster to just go buy another one than the time you spent looking for a tool.

 

[engineer2]

I once lost a Craftsman phillips screwdriver for 10 years. Finally found it in the bottom of a box of plumbing fittings. Lost it again when I moved. Found it in a parts box months later.
Some tools just don't want to be around.

 

[Snap_cap]

yesterday i lost a 1/4 drive facom ratchet and 8mm socket .left it on the roof of a scrap car i was removing parts from . went in for lunch came back out dissapeared into thin air . this is in my own back yard with a 6ft fence around it only me and my wife there .

Crows or magpies maybe? Both of those birds like shiny things.

 

[ChevyEFI]

since mail delivered to our house doesn't always make it to my hands, the times I have been unable to locate garage stuff seems invisibly low.

 

[Snap_cap]

Bought a DeWalt cordless 4-1/2" grinder for a project at work, project got cancelled before I was able to even bring the grinder to work, so it sat at home in the toolbox untouched with other DeWalt cordless tools & batteries.

Eighteen months later it is needed for a different project at work, okay no problem I'll just bring it in the next day.

Can't find the spanner wrench anywhere. It had been in the drawer with the tool.

Ordered a new one from Amazon, still haven't found the original one.

 

[HanShotFirst]

Screwdrivers seemed to grow legs around my house like crazy. So I bought a bunch of 6-1's and strategically placed them where people could find them easier than raiding my tool box.

And I seem to have a gift for losing 10mm combination wrenches...what's up with that?

 

[larry_g]

In a similar thread, https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113009 ,I lost and found my transit tripod.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[Tractorsellr]

Lost my pair of Klein rebar pliers yesterday working on the back fence that I have had for more than 30 years. I will put a lot of effort in this weekend looking for them. Lost my fence pliers 2 weeks ago and have no idea where they went.

 

[CJM8515]

Snap on 1/4 long handle flex. I bought anew one but it doesnt seem as nice as the old one.

 

[Mikeske]

I have been married for forty years and dearly love my wife but she has one annoying little habit. I be working on something and she is trying to help but once I finish a project I might leave the tools to be picked up later and she has this thing she will pick up the tools no matter where including in my shop, box them up and put them away.

Just the other day I am in the garage and I happen to be digging around in the back of the garage and I see these 2 little boxes all unmarked and taped shut.
I open the boxes and there is my tubing cutter that has been missing from tubing-flare kit for the last ten years. In the 2nd box is a pristine set of Craftsman screwdrivers. They were etched with my name on them but looked brand new, I never even knew those were missing and the tape on the box was badly yellowed. How long were those missing.

After I retired in April I have been digging through a lot of the old stuff that my wife has boxed up and even found the grill for our Coleman gas barbecue in a box.

 

[Bacon Man]

Countless 13mm wrenches and hex keys
Bits for 11-1's, take em out to use as a nut driver and bam, swallowed into an electrical panel.

 

[egnorant]

My favorite spooky tool tale...

When I was 16 (1976) I was replacing the water pump on my 67 Mustang 6 cylinder. My workbench was the tailgate of my Dad's truck that was 4 feet from the front of the car. Well, I used my Dad's 1/2 and 9/16ths Craftsman wrench and set it down on the tailgate. A minute later, turned around and it was just GONE! Hard search, no luck and I muddled on.

2005 I was cleaning out the shop building from 30 years of junk and opened a travel case for a portable adding machine that had been stored forever and there was the wrench!

How it got there is totally unknown and I still have the rest of the set plus the wrench my Dad made me buy to replace the one I lost.

Bruce

 

[HanShotFirst]

I recently lost a 3/4" socket from my grandfathers SK 1/2" socket set...that hurt.

 

[JABgj]

I am not greatly organized at any one time, but I kinda/sorta know where stuff is. Working on a project and needed my little angle grinder to get to a tight spot. Checked the air tool drawer. Nope. Main tool box. Nada. Everywhere else logical. Zip. Oh well, I hope it will turn up. On to the next project and pull out the tote where I keep my grinding wheels and pads. Hey, guess what I found in the bottom of the tote? Good ol' angle grinder. At least it was not gone forever.