Where do disappearing tools go?

[Outlawmws]

Around here they are generally in my son's bedroom...

 

[camarotoolman]

Kids, neighbors, relatives, co-workers. I'm takeful for them cause I sell the replacements at the flee or car shows.

 

[camarotoolman]

Kids, neighbors, relatives, co-workers. I'm takeful for them cause I sell the replacements at the flee or car shows.

 

[atomicpunk]

I find them in/on the side of the road when mountain biking or stuck in traffic scanning the shoulder of the road. You also would not believe all the smashed cell phones littering the shoulders.

 

[oldwino]

Trolls take them along with left socks...

maybe we should meet up sometime...those little sob's always take my right socks

 

[KermitFrog]

I'd love to know where my 10mm sockets keep going. They all keep disappearing, 1/4 & 3/8.

 

[Cobra5150]

Same place the missing socks go.

-Jeff

Ever find a single dirty sock on the side of the road or somewhere?
That's one that didn't make it.

Right now I can't find my razor blade scraper.

 

[greasemonkey44]

lost a 10" long 1/2" extension; set it down somewhere in the shop

 

[blue dog]

When we figure this out, can we work on finding the pens and pencils i lose everyday. EVERYDAY.

 

[Outlawmws]

lost a 10" long 1/2" extension; set it down somewhere in the shop

I "lost" an 18" breaker bar because my son put it in the wrong drawer and buried it...

 

[Outlawmws]

Kids, neighbors, relatives, co-workers. I'm takeful for them cause I sell the replacements at the flee or car shows.

OK everybody, He admitted it in writing!

Get a rope!

 

[KermitFrog]

When we figure this out, can we work on finding the pens and pencils i lose everyday. EVERYDAY.

I used to booby trap my desk just for those people that helped my pens walk. After a while, everyone was scared to touch anything on my desk because they didn't know what would happen. Maybe that can be applied to tool boxes.....just in case someone is helping them disappear.

 

[mrobins297aaa]

not to worry ...."when you die the first thing that happens is you get back everything you've ever lost.......except for your virginity you don't get that back because you were in to big of a hurry to get rid of it" ........george Carlin

 

[Jawn]

My stuff used to end up in my dad's shed or toolbox.

Not for the last year though... I miss that old man.

 

[Buckgnarly]

They get plowed into snow piles after you forget your 6pt 3/8 combo on the tire of your plow truck the night before the first snow.....ask me how I know!

 

[byoungblood]

Probably hanging off the filter on your Vehical still? You wouldnt believe the tools I find attached or in the engine compartments. found a nice Snap-On 1/4" extension just yesterday!!

I've found some sockets that I'd been missing for months stuck on the end of a bolt or nut somewhere on one of my vehicles. Or other tools that were left inside frame rails or other convenient places to lay a tool down and miraculously did not manage to vibrate/bounce out of where they were left after a few thousand miles of driving.

 

[BigAl62]

Here's a possible answer:

 

[Flatland Dave]

I know for a fact that they don't grow in to tool trees, if that were the case there would be a forest of Channel Lock plier trees on the Palouse of Eastern Washington.

 

[Cheap5.0]

I think they go and become the stuff that they call rings around the planet Saturn......To float it weightlessness forever............
I lost my 1 inch micrometer last week. I think it may of fallen in the garbage or metal recycling bin........
Already took the garbage to the street and also took the scrap to the wreckers.
Baught 2 in case I loose one again......
Only other explanation would be one of my customers did it, I really don't want to go there...

Being in a family business that has had to go there....its a possibility.

When things disapeer around the shop, 2 out of three times its misplaced. But that one time, it always eats you up knowing someone walked off with your stuff.

 

[TinyFab]

When I was 16 I bought a 79 ramcharger off a lot, weeks later I was underneath checking stuff out and found a SnapOn ratcheting screwdriver laying on the framerail. I could never figure out how it stayed there considering the way I beat that truck, but I still have it 22yrs later.

 

[rodm1]

I'll check for your tools at my brothers house. That's where mine often magically appear.

You have one of those two. I'm still looking for my good snap ring pliers never used them.

 

[dabirdguy]

There is an imp that lives in my garage.
He takes my tools and puts then in odd places.
Then he puts them back...sometimes the same hour or even the same day. Sometimes it takes months for the tool to re-appear.
When I catch the little ******* I'm gonna skin him.

 

[PowerGenGuy]

I have three sons, when I am working in the shop or on a vehicle, my sons hover around, as soon as I put something down, they take it and disapppear, GREMLINS!

 

[BigAl62]

BigAl - Please ask your cat about it. We're in the same state and maybe she wandered down here. Or maybe she's heard the word on the street.

I asked her, no she hasn't seen it! It's not a screwdriver so she has no interest in it.

 

[Plombob]

(If anyone has any clue WTF she needed a 1-5/8" combo wrench for, feel free to weigh in).

Ahhh... To bean you on the noggin?

I had a 1/4" socket in my hand with other tools and when I went to tighten up the oil pan, that socket was gone. Never found it. That's weird!

 

[1984Datsun]

I hate it when that happens...

My tools must be on the outer edge of the galaxy or something...

Funny thing is I have yet to leave a tool on/in a car. They disappear in my barn instead... I find my tools all the time digging through parts bins and whatnot.

I'm gradually working towards putting tools away in my Snap-On box after I'm done using them... and once I finally get all of my tools organized, I suspect that's when I'll start losing them by forgetting them on/in cars...

I found a screwdriver on the lower radiator support panel on my VW, and also once found a nice small plastic handled wire brush on the wiper cowl of the same car. It made the 40+ mile trip from one place to my house on the wiper cowl... I was doing some hard cornering too... like 40 mph right hand turns...

 

[Bronson]

Check on top of Your head. At least, that is where My sunglasses/safety glasses always go when I cant find them.

 

[FergusonTO35]

In 1999 I lost a Snap-On 3/8 drive extension while working on a car at a particular shop. I left that shop, worked a couple of other places, and ended up working there again in 2001. The same car came in one day and I found the extension under the air filter box where I had left it before. A 1/4 ratchet is riding around on another car I worked on there, unfortunately that particular shop went out of business a few years ago.

 

[KMinAF]

I am pretty sure that the screw drivers end up stuck in someones tire. I've seen numerous tires needing to be replaced because of a screw driver being run over ( as well as small wrenches, pliers, bolts, extentions and much more.

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f7/whats-strangest-thing-puncture-your-tire-331452/

 

[Herb]

Yes, where do they go? My father has been looking for various tools for years (at least 40 years that I know of) and has yet to find that place. Now back in 1984 one of the guys I used to work with threw a jelly doughnut at another guy ( doofus) in the parts dept. I worked at and we never could find where it landed. Fast forward to 2001 when I had to move the shelving to a new building and low and behold, there was that jelly dougnut stuck in a back corner of a bottom shelf, hard as a hockey puck!

 

[BigAl62]

I am pretty sure that the screw drivers end up stuck in someones tire. I've seen numerous tires needing to be replaced because of a screw driver being run over ( as well as small wrenches, pliers, bolts, extentions and much more.

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f7/whats-strangest-thing-puncture-your-tire-331452/

My favorite tire find was a 6' (NOT inches, FEET!) piece of chrome trim. It wrapped around the wheel and tore the inside of the tire all to hell! (Sorry, no picture, this was almost 30 years ago when I started wrenching and I didn't have a camera then)

 

[illmatyk]

I'd like to know where my SO 32oz ballpeen hammer, channel locks, pliers, and brake line locks are at!

I found my brake line locks in my coworkers tool cart, my pliers were with one of the lot guys in the sale show room.

Still on the look out for my channel locks and SO hammer.

 

[Stuntmonkey]

Co-workers or my other halves toolbag (Shes a journeyman electrician too). Co-workers learn REAL fast about borrowing my stuff and not putting it back when they are finished.

 

[tmike14400]

I usually change my oil in the driveway rather than in the garage (better lighting) and one time, I couldn't find my oil filter wrench afterwards. I searched everywhere for it and was starting to think someone came up my driveway and stole it when I went inside to take a leak.
It bugged the hell out of me and I never really got over it but I did go and buy a new wrench. YEARS later, I was doing another oil change and my cell phone rang. I took the call on my back under the car and while talking, I happened to see some odd looking rusty thing sitting on the frame rail - my wrench!
It rode along for about 50,000 miles in all kinds of weather. I was surprised to say the least and also relieved that I hadn't been ripped off.

 

[MrSnicks]

Whenever I have a tool disappear I ask my 3 year old daughter about it. She can usually find where she put in it 5 minutes. I have since started putting my "junk" tools or duplicates in a pink tool bag for her. I got the brightest pink nail polish I could find and put a pink dot on all "her" tools. Now she knows if they don't have pink they aren't hers.

Patrick

 

[arbadacarba]

I have a pocket knife that my Dad bought for me when I was a kid... I've had it for 25 years... Minus the year it spent under the carpet in my car, and the 2 years that I lost it when I was working in a computer store... I had lent it to someone, who lost it. The Owner of the company found it and took it home. almost two years later, his son, who also worked at the store found it in a drawer and brought it to work where I found him picking his teeth with it.

Ten years since then and I haven't lost it again (Knock Wood)

 

[stripped]

I have had tools stolen, borrowed and lost. That said, I have found tools in rather interesting places, recently a 1/2 " Snap-on ratchet was found on the road . A pair of vise-grips under the floor in my attic and an eastwing hammer under an old fuel oil tank.
If you have kids you can usually find tools with a lawn mower when you cut the grass. Where tools end up is often a mystery but hopefully whoever finds them can use them.

 

[1984Datsun]

My favorite tire find was a 6' (NOT inches, FEET!) piece of chrome trim. It wrapped around the wheel and tore the inside of the tire all to hell! (Sorry, no picture, this was almost 30 years ago when I started wrenching and I didn't have a camera then)

Another good tool in the tire story...

Years ago when pops was in the tire business, he saw a car come in with half of a needle nose pliers stuck in its tire. Patched the tire and sent them off...

A couple of hours later, another car came in with the other half...

Both halves popped the right rear tire on each car. It makes sense that the plier halves were disturbed from their flat resting position by the right front tire, and thus proceeded to poke a neat hole into the rear tire.

The odds that they both would show up at the same shop after hitting the same tool just a couple hours apart is quite crappy, lol. Worse than russian roulette crappy odds, to be exact...

They weren't the only shop in that area that was capable of patching tires.