That little elf under the workbench again

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

When I was an apprentice I was working in the transmission area on a Sea King and dropped a nut. My long-suffering apprentice-master (I was never very good at my job, worse as an apprentice) told me that I would stay until I had found it. After half an hour I had found washers, nuts, bolts, split pins, all sorting in that transmission bay. The only thing I hadn't found was my original bolt. My apprentice master decided the area was safer than when we had started so we decided to carry on…

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

In my job as Engineering Manager in industrial fans, I have a well know law (mine) if you do something to improve or cure a problem , it won't, If you change something for other reasons and say it won't make any difference, it will.

Bill D.

[peter smith 5Participant @petersmith5]

A few years ago the then editor of ME suggested a use for the plastic wrapper that the postal version came in. I just used a Tesco bag containing a powerful horseshoe magnet that I removed before the scrap man took away a DSG lathe. It held a cover in place. My version came with 2 carrying handles so I did not have to bend so much.

Now if you are reeeely clever you can learn the trick I turning the bag inside out leaving the magnet outside and all the swarf inside the bag for disposal. Didn’t Hyawather have some gloves like that?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Most desperate, or at least most in-vain, search I've known was for a contact-lens. On a country road with a verge of lank grass.

There we were, I think about six of us, in the Yorkshire Dales for a caving weekend years ago. One of the party had not long transferred to double-glazing after years of wearing glasses – but would swap back to glasses for caving, where inadvertent contact with a waterfall could result in losing contact with contact lens.

She dropped it after the caving-trip, when changing back into ordinary clothes at the roadside.

We all spend ages literally crawling around that verge and asphalt (ironically perhaps, most of the caving itself had been walking!); and yes, we tried using the lowering afternoon sun in the hope that would glint off the lens. No hope.

A couple of us on a trip there again, I think in the following year, had another look but it was out of a sense of duty rather than reality.

So if anyone trying to find a 12BA nut they happened to have dropped on the road through Kingsdale, finds a contact lens instead…

[peter smith 5Participant @petersmith5]

In the year 1976 in a brand new minivan touring Europe , we perchanced upon a famous place where Adolph had his eagles nest – Berchesgarten We watched light aircraft flying below us and made comments about the information signs all around in GB, F, D and I telling you to run like hell for the shelter when the air raid siren sounds.

Weather in the mountains can change in seconds and you guessed it. Everyone ran, including us, to the shelter as a huge thunder storm fell on top of us. Lightening goes up as well as down. We decided food was required but the menu boards were only in German so we decided that black bread and pea soup would be ample as we looked in the soup urn.
My wife wears contacts lenses, some of the first soft ones as she was a “guinea pig “ for her optician (and they were free ). She rubbed her eye ……….. and as LBSC used to say “ Nuff sed”……

p.s. I found it!

pete

[Anonymous]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 18/03/2021 17:09:49:

We are only here to moan because our shops have already been infiltrated.

So was mine but they've left me alone recently … until today.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Some time ago I wanted a better way of checking the camber on my car than sticking a digital angle gauge to a length of angle iron cable tied across the wheel.

So I turned an aluminium disc to fit inside the wheel centre, epoxied a magnet to hold it against the grease cap, and stuck some sheet steel to the outside for the gauge. I didn't use a steel disc because I only had small magnets, and already had the aluminium that was almost the right size:

stuck to the wheel ready for the gauge:

I made this the day before doing a front suspension rebuild for a customer. After fitting the new components, I spent ages looking for the tool I'd made less than 24 hours earlier. I couldn't find it, so had to go back to the angle-iron for the initial camber adjustment(these cars need a full four wheel alignment, but getting it close with ghetto methods is a good start)

About six weeks later, I moved my belt sander and found the disc stuck to the side of it.

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

If you love these sort of tales (as I do) try to get your hands on a copy of 'The book of heroic failures' by Stephen Pile. (it's also got some excellent cartoons by Bill Tidy). If you've just been irritated by dropping the last screw of a project and it not being seen again, just try this as one example from the above book. [Quote]

In Sept 1978 a paint scraper worth the equivalent of 30pence was accidently dropped into a torpedo launcher of the US nuclear submarine Swordfish. It jammed the loading mechanism and for weeks divers attempted to free it while waterborn without success. She eventually had to be dry-docked and repairs cost a vast amount!

Puts it all in perspective!

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

The nuclear sub story reminds one of 1485, and the battle of Bosworth Field.. "For want of ma shoe, for want of a nail, the battle was lost"

A very small thing can cause chaos.

A 2 micron scratch caused failure of almost every component where the parts were the heart of the pump.

At 500 bar, you can force a lot of fuel through a scratch that deep! Enough to cause a pressure imbalance and metal to metal contact followed by seizure.

Our limit on dirt in the oilways of any component was 5 mg. If that took the form of just one piece of steel swarf, a disastrous bearing and crankshaft failure was on the horizon.

One our bearing suppliers made their own broach grinding machine. The bearings were poor quality, so that the chatter on the broach formed a series of depressions across the white metal of the steel backed bearing, less than 0.00001" deep. We found out while investigating bearing failures!

Howard

[robjon44Participant @robjon44]

I never used to have fingers like sausages!

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

Apart from ME stuff I make jewellery. Some years ago I made my wife a pair of gold earrings. After about 4 years she confessed that she's lost one, so I made a replacement. Quite a few years later and a month before her birthday (in April) she tearfully admitted that she'd lost one of the earrings, so I said I'd make her another for her birthday. She was quite adamant that I shouldn't make it 'cos she was sure it would turn up.

Fast forward to Christmas that year and I decided to make another earring as a surprise present. She was delighted with it. That year we were invited to a Boxing Day lunch with other friends, and it snowed. An old university friend of my wife stayed with us and she and I took things to the car whilst my wife was preparing other things.

When I got to the car, the friend picked something up from the snow and said "Look, she's lost it already". It was the earring I'd made. When my wife came out we chastised her for her carelessness. She immediately put her hands to her ears and demonstrated that she did, indeed, still have both earrings.

Now here's the thing. The car is always kept on the driveway, and had been used almost every day that year. The earring was undamaged, had been covered in snow, and had been found close to the car. I can't explain it, nor could anyone else. It was clearly a Christmas present from the Elf.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Christmas magpie bearing gifts ?

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

My elf likes the very small taper pins used in clocks. (0.2mm diameter and 4-5mm long). Once they squirt out of the tweezers I can rarely find them UNTIL I have searched hard, given up, made a new one and fitted it. At that point the elf returns the missing pin in an entirely obvious place.

Edited By Peter Cook 6 on 20/03/2021 12:50:08

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

Peter I think I've got your elf's brother

Roy

[Ian ParkinParticipant @ianparkin39383]

My elf must be great big goblin

i’ve spent 2 hours looking for a 1-3/8ths” tap 5 inches long and best part of a kilo

had a break to look for a new one on eBay then went armed with a torch and there it was lurking under a rotary table

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Usually, the goblin puts behind you while you are looking elswhere, or drops it into a drawer, where it could not possibly have bounced unaided.

Howard

[Fowlers FuryParticipant @fowlersfury]

What really annoys me is that if perchance I do not drop something of value during time in the workshop, that little sod who lives under the bench satiates him/her-self by tangling up all the mains leads on my power tools during the hours of darkness.

[TeVeParticipant @teve]

Posted by Peter Greene on 18/03/2021 15:48:35:

You guys do realise that anyone reading/replying to this thread provides an infiltration path for this elf/gremlin?

Oh.

Then I am happy to tell we don't have any elf or gremlin here in this country, only troll and nisse. But they do have the same behaviour, hiding your tools and parts, when looking around you only hear a gleeful laugh from behind a shelf.

[Anonymous]

…. but do they laugh in English?

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

I have a small workshop so the gremlins have a field day but I fight back if I do not need the part or have a spare say with nut's and washers i leave it so the gremlins get bored and it lost part come to light

H

[TeVeParticipant @teve]

Posted by Peter Greene on 20/03/2021 18:01:28:

…. but do they laugh in English?

Any language, depending on the listener I think. !!!! Except for the Swedes where they are told that a laughter should be short and military, Ha! Ha!

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Well a happy ending for me but before that a disaster, had another go with the magnet on a telescopic stick and lost the end under my milling machine!!

Good news, I found my 6BA socket, it had bounced up and was nestling in some old shirts under a bench I had stored ready for turning into wipers.

Bill D.

[John BaronParticipant @johnbaron31275]

Posted by Bill Dawes on 21/03/2021 18:31:38:

Well a happy ending for me but before that a disaster, had another go with the magnet on a telescopic stick and lost the end under my milling machine!!

Good news, I found my 6BA socket, it had bounced up and was nestling in some old shirts under a bench I had stored ready for turning into wipers.

Bill D.

You need a bigger magnet

[Anonymous]

On the subject of pick-up tools, I have several magnetic types but one time I was in Florida, Harbor-Freight had a claw-type pickup on a stick on sale for $1. I thought it was a bit daft at the time but …. it was a dollar so I bought one.

It's probably one of the most useful devices in my shop for retrieving things that have dropped behind/under machines and benches …. especially as I've aged. And the lost part doesn't have to be magnetic (although I use the magnetic pick-ups too).

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by John Baron on 21/03/2021 18:55:26:

Posted by Bill Dawes on 21/03/2021 18:31:38:

Well a happy ending for me but before that a disaster, had another go with the magnet on a telescopic stick and lost the end under my milling machine!!

Good news, I found my 6BA socket, it had bounced up and was nestling in some old shirts under a bench I had stored ready for turning into wipers.

Bill D.

You need a bigger magnet

And one with a light built in.

[Author]

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