I find an extendable mechanics magnet quite useful, you can buy quite powerful ones for a fiver, stick it underneath and sweep it side to side as you pull it back, it usually pick it up if it's there.

This is an only tenuously related magnetic retrieval story.

A wireline logging school is a vocational training establishment where baby engineers practice making electrical measurements on baby oil wells. Inductive resistivity instruments, gamma ray density instruments, acoustic propagation velocity and many more such arcane logging tools are lowered on an armoured electrical cable into a practice well some hundreds of feet deep. One of the training mantras that gets repeated is "making mistakes in a controlled environment".

Evidence of just how many mistakes occur and rarely get reported is seen when an electromagnetic fishing/retrieval tool is lowered to the bottom of the well and turned on. C spanners, Allen screw wrenches, spiral pins, etc. are retrieved to surface in numbers to complete everyone's toolbox and even begin restocking the storeroom's shelves. Regrettably not all accidents involve ferromagnetic materials and so the training wells slowly become shallower over the years.

One little tablet decides to roll away off the work top.

If it is that bad, put them on a saucer or plate? Use a rough surface (tissue, tea cloth, towel – even a sheet of (unused) loo paper? Any precaution, after the first time, might have prevented the second? It’s all about learning….

Is your worktop that much off-level?🙂 A wedge or two under the worktop edge might make them roll the other way.🙂

Replacing a ceiling mount bathroom extractor fan yesterday I kept dropping the screws and was incredibly smug because I'd remembered to put the bath plug in.

Sod's Law soon punished me. Took 20 minutes to find the torx bit needed to do the screws up, because it missed the bath. The Elf bounced it out the door, across a landing and down the stairs! Travelled about 7 metres…

And why is it so many DIY jobs require a special step-ladder and three hands?

Dave

When I drove a mk 1 escort the lights switch (or it might have been the wipers) would have been easier to use if one was equipped with a third hand growing out of ones left knee!

Somewhere my gremlin has hidden away many of the contents of a plastic box containing the #61 to 80m drills that I dropped a LONG time ago.

Despite regular (at least twice a year ) "Mucking of Geordie's byre" they never come to light. 6 BA nuts and washers? Yes, but small drills NO

Proof of what my Physics master called Newton's Fourth Law- The eternal cussedness of things, sometimes attributed to Sod.

Howard

Now that is the proof of Newtons 4th Law

Howard

I have telescopic 'pick-up' magnets in both my shops for retrieving things that I can see but not reach (bending & kneeling is getting harder).

However, for small parts (that I can't immediately see) I now use a magnetic 'tool holder' that I purchased from Lidl some time ago. In fact I purchased three and only used two (one is mounted under a shelf & holds those little jam pots that come with cream teas – great for various small bits that can be seen at a glance).

The third stayed in it's plastic case awaiting use – until I dropped some 12BA steel nuts and realised that the 12"+ long magnet would make a good 'sweeper' – especially under benches and trolleys where escaping things might have rolled. It works very well and I just wipe the swarf & any bits collected down to one end and into a tray for closer inspection.

Regards,

IanT

I have two slightly different sized telescopic magnets. They live in a piece of 15mm and 22 mm copper pipe with a copper disc soldered onto the end, and faced to as thin as I dare (Initially TOO thin! )

Having picked up whatever ferrous object being sought plus a load of ferrous swarf, withdrawing the

Withdrawing the magnet from the tube causes the stuff in the end to fall off. To stop it following the magnet, there is an O ring round the tube, close to the bottom end.

It does not always defeat the workshop imp!

Howard

I still have not found the ball bearing from my depth stop on my drill press even using a magnet never to be sen again luckily I have managed to aquire a replacement. It hit my toe cap and I heard it hit something else even after looking it the place the sound came from still no luck, no doubt I will find it when I build the new workshop and use this one for storage.

I remember once dropping a small part I had just finished turning on the lathe, I couldn't find it anywhere even after about an hour of searching where I saw it land. I was kinda annoyed considering the part took about 2 hours to make. I did eventually find the part about 6 months later. It had bounced up inside a cabinet drawer and landed perfectly balanced on top of the door hinge! The odds of that happening again must be a billion to one!