Miracles do happen

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

I posted some time ago about that little gremlin that lurks under work benches in our workshop ready to snatch away anything we drop. Well today a new watch I ordered arrived, just a cheap everyday one. Needed to adjust the clasp so went into garage for a sharp pointy thing to depress the spring loaded pins, PING, away it shot to the back of my workshop, got a torch hoping against hope and miracle of miracles there it was neatly nestling on the rubber mat.

I shall be talking about this for years to anyone I can bore with my workshop tales.

Bill D.

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

Gremlins probably under lockdown

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

I started to adjust my watch last year & did the same in the kitchen. A couple of days ago i was cleaning the kitchen & used the vac under the hob housing. Heard a strange rattle in the vac tube & yes there it was. I ended up buying a new watch from Argos because of the loss of the pin. (Excuse to buy one really). Wonder if Argos will take back a 1 year old multi scratched watch.

Steve.

[Adrian DownesParticipant @adriandownes83818]

With watchmaking it's only when you stop losing things that you start to get anywhere 😁

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Could be a ruddy great turret clock, and I'd still lose bits to the gremlins….

[Graham StoppaniParticipant @grahamstoppani46499]

I lost a tiny black screw under the bench a while back. I hunted around for it crawling around with a torch until I finally found it lurking behind one of the rear bench legs. My joy was short lived. It was a DIFFERENT tiny black screw. Seems my resident gremlins have a warped sense of humour…

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

The gremlins have held hostage half of my tiny drills (From the plastic ~61 to 80 box ) for many years.

One day, not too far away, someone will liberate them when they clear the workshop!

Every time that I take up the plastic mats to clean the floor, I find the washers, nuts and screws that they have hidden beneath them.

Thought that my face covering had dislodged my hearing aids when in town. No, the cat had kicked them off the chest of drawers, and under the bed!

Howard

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

Was working on an auto's brakes yesterday and one of the hold down springs went ping into the great unknown. I have a couple of magnets mounted on a short board. We went every where within a 30' circle with no joy. Told the Wife I was going into town to buy a replacement kit for $30. Started to go out the front door and here She came in holding the spring. She put the tools in the trunk and slammed the lid and heard something drop on the gravel and found it. We both looked under the car before and did not see it. Thankful.

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

Many years ago my wife lost one of the gold earrings I'd made for her, so I made a replacement. A few years later, just before her birthday in April, she tearfully admitted that she'd lost one again. Although I volunteered to make a replacement she was adamant that I shouldn't, because 'it will turn up sometime'. The months went by and the earring didn't 'turn up', so I made a replacement as a Christmas present. That year one of her old school friends stayed with us and we were all invited out for Boxing day. It actually snowed on Christmas day that year and the friend and I went out first to brush the snow from the car. Suddenly the friend shouted 'look, she's lost it already!' and held up the earring that she'd found in the snow near the car. When my wife came out.we teased her about losing the new earring so quickly. She immediately touched her ears and confirmed that both earrings were in place.

To this day we don't know how the missing earring turned up, undamaged, in the driveway, in the snow some eight months after it had been lost. She now has three earrings.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I dropped a small bearing ball (from a stop valve) last week and after fruitlessly looking on the floor with torch and broom – went to plan 'B' and swept the really hard-to-get-to places with a magnetic pick-up tool (workshop fishing is favourite hobby of mine).

I didn't find the ball but did improve my inventory of small screws and washers (and swarf). Next time I drop a screw, no doubt I'll find the ball instead. I'm still wondering what the screws came from..

Regards,

IanT

[David NobleParticipant @davidnoble71990]

I find threads like this so comforting as I often think it's only me that this happens to.

David

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

its like the little screw that holds tool tips in place. Bought a packet of them – but of course, the torx size is different from the original ones ! So gremlins can still strike in different ways.

[Martin WParticipant @martinw]

Several years ago dropped a smallish spanner in my shed and before I could bend down to retrieve it the Gremlins pounced and snaffled it, I still haven't found what they did with it and I reckon they are still chuckling about it. As for small fixings/parts etc. they must have secreted a hoard somewhere! Ahh the joys of fumbling fingers, poorer eyesight and not being able to hear when small things hit the floor seem to be the gifts we acquire as we get older/old.

Martin

[clogsParticipant @clogs]

when, not if I drop something, I look for a short while, then get the broom out, then get the wife out…..

she normaly find the stuff /thing I dropped and now as I'm getting older MISSPLACED……hahaha….

getting used to putting the tools away where they should be and anything else in buckets….

trouble is the shed is full of buckets….hahaha…..

have a good weekend…..

[JagerParticipant @jager]

Many years ago a neighbours young child decided to look at daddys watch, took it out into the garden and promptly lost it!

A search party was mustered all to no avail and the errant timepiece declared well and truly gone.

Many years passed until one day the same neighbour was turning a flower border when he unearthed the watch.

After washing it under the tap he gave it a qujck wind and a shake – to his surprise it still worked.

It says a lot for that Omega Seamaster.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I recon I've got borrowers rather than gremlins, cause I'll be using something to big for gremlins, and the next minute it will be gone, but maybe it will be back the next day or even after a week, in a place I'm pretty sure I didn't put it.

Regards Nick.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

My six inch rule is definitely mobile. Every time that I put it down, it sneaks away behind me.

Just like a pantomime "It's behind you!"

Howard

never though that my fingers stammered!

Edited By Howard Lewis on 29/08/2020 18:03:09

[WatfordParticipant @watford]

Posted by Jager on 29/08/2020 17:27:31:

Many years ago a neighbours young child decided to look at daddys watch, took it out into the garden and promptly lost it!

A search party was mustered all to no avail and the errant timepiece declared well and truly gone.

Many years passed until one day the same neighbour was turning a flower border when he unearthed the watch.

After washing it under the tap he gave it a qujck wind and a shake – to his surprise it still worked.

It says a lot for that Omega Seamaster.

The same child whilst cruising on a foreign holiday said to the father "Is a thing lost if you know where it is?"

Rather after the manner of Captain Mainwaring father retorted "Stupid child, of course not."

" That's good " said the child, "Because I know where your watch is – I just dropped it over the side."

M

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

In 1984 I lost a Free Flight model aircraft at the Australian Nats.

One day in 2002 I received a mysterious phone call; "Have you lost a wee model aeroplane laddie?" (with a fake Scots accent)

I relied that I had not lost one for over ten years.

"What about a model with a KSB timer and a Cox Tee-Dee .051 modified engine?" was the reply.

LoL I replied, I had lost such a model many years ago.

"Well, it's yours again for a donation to the Doonside youth club".

It later transpired that a punter had arrived at a buy and sell market at the SSME Sydney Society of Model Engineers and attempted to sell a model aircraft that the vendor obviously knew nothing about.

The 'VH' number on the wing tracked it to me and so 18 yerars later I was re-united with my model.

The engine was in good condition, the timers were rusty but it was nice to get the old girl back after 18 years.

The fake 'Scotsman' was an old friend, Ivor F of Doonside, NSW, Australia who was keen to raise funds for disadvantaged young people.

* Danny M *

[Phil StevensonParticipant @philstevenson54758]

Losing one glove is painful

But nothing compared to the pain

Of losing one, throwing away the other,

Then finding the first one again.

Piet Hein

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

This MEW Front Cover is a picture of my milling machine decked out as a Christmas Tree, ha ha. I took the photo.

I added the red arrow later to point at the blue hat at right. Trouble is I don't own a hat like that, nor do I know anyone else who does. Visitors are rare and I was alone when the photo was taken. No sign of the hat other than in the photo – I've never seen it for real.

Gremlins in reverse. I reckon they drop objects through wormholes in the space-time continuum. The reason your blue hat disappeared from Alice Springs in 1957 is because Gremlins hid it in the South of England 60 years later and then moved it again.

I've no rational explanation for the hat and no idea where it is now. Spooky.

Dave

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Dave,

Did I not see a pic of Neil wearing a hat like that?….

Martin

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Early in designing my 4-inch scale steam-wagon I needed to perform a "sum" a bit too awkward for pen and paper, so turned to my calculator. (This was before I had a computer.)

No calculator. Anywhere.

Oh. Errr. Slide-rule? I had no idea where I'd put that but the gremlins had had plenty to time to disguise and hide it.

Log-tables? Luckily I could find a text-book with the normal maths tables, so could complete the calculation.

Next day I visited Woolworths' where I found that scientific calculators had grown to about half as bulky again as hitherto at the same time as portable 'phones were becoming about two-thirds that of their own predecessors. Gone from shirt-pocket to waxed-jacket pocket size, if you like.

Bought one, and back home, placed it where I would keep seeing it.

A few weeks later I opened a drawer looking for something else entirely, to find the AWOL sum-box, where I knew I had not put it.

I concluded that homes can generate tiny black holes, nowhere near cosmic size but sufficiently larger than the sort the LHC physicists once thought it might make, to be able to absorb small items and render them invisible. However, unable to sustain themselves they soon evaporate, dropping their prey wherever their random wanderings take them.

That's my excuse, anyway…… And it's definitely gremlins hiding things in the workshop.

[derek hall 1Participant @derekhall1]

Hi Dave,

I thought that cover picture was fantastic, so funny and very "seasonal"

I bought the mag just for the cover!!!!

Perhaps we ought to have a competition for the best Christmasy picture to go on the front of this years MEW?

Regards

Derek

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