The things I see

Tinman

Well that takes care of that.

Intplm.

Ok. I was wondering what happened to that screw driver. Or was it the nut driver, or wood chisel that you borrowed? Give them back !🙂

ratio

At least you know where the hole is…

EBEBRATT-Ed

Brings back memories.

First year in the business I worked for an oil company. So they had me out doing tune ups. I was working on an old H B Smith 24 the ones with the cast Iron headers on the supply and both return drums headers.

. One of the return drums had a 1" gate valve and when I opened the valve it broke right off at the nipple. I haden't even put normal hand pressure on it. All the water gushed out and flooded the basement. I9 year old kid I didn't have a clue. Friday afternoon in the summer and this apartment (4 family) used it for DHW.

Nipple was broke off inside a 2 x 1 bushing.

So I got a screwdriver and a rag and pounded it in their as tight as I could. Filled the boiler and tested the LWCO about 10 times and left.

Monday my boss sent someone over to make the repair. I asked him after the fact and he said I did good job. "the rag was as dry as a bone, not a drop of water on the floor"

Tinman

@EBEBRATT-Ed - Apparently this one has been running with the screwdriver plug for a while. You’d think the plastic handle would have deformed a little.

hot_rod

It's to induce turbulent flow conditions.

STEAM DOCTOR

> @hot_rod said:
> It's to induce turbulent flow conditions.

If it's a flathead screwdriver, you should be able to turn for adjustment

RonnieJ

This reminds me... Early in my career I was a computer repair tech - I worked on word processors - this was a few years before the IBM PC was released. The typical workstation had a five-slot card cage - with three, closely-spaced boards in it. You could buy a new Corvette for less than the price of a word processor and printer combo.

Every year, we would perform preventative maintenance for our contract customers - clean and align the daisy wheel printer, clean the keyboards and pull the rear cover to check the fan and reseat the circuit boards. The covers had two large Philips-head screws that were notoriously difficult to get out. Many a time the screw-head would strip. I had the perfect driver that worked really well on these stubborn screws.

At some point, I lost my favorite driver - couldn't find it anywhere. Nor could I find a replacement that worked as well. I looked everywhere I went, knowing I left it on a job somewhere.
Eventually, I quit looking.

A year or so later, I had to drive out to the farthest reaches of my territory to perform p.m. at this real-estate firm. I opened the cover on the first machine, and there was my trusty screwdriver, sitting precariously between two circuit boards. I must have dropped it, got distracted, and used another driver to reinstall the cover screws.

I was overjoyed - I had found my driver, and avoided the embarrassment of another tech discovering my mistake. I was really lucky that nobody tried moving that machine or bumped it with the power on - it could have shorted out the card cage and wreaked havoc.

After that experience, I learned to always put my tools, keys, and wallet in the same place - so I would notice anything missing before leaving a work site. Somehow though, I'm still looking for a few missing tools.

R.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@RonnieJ

Drop ceilings are always a favorite. Dark up their you leave a pair of pliers or something up their. Get down off the ladder put the tile back move to another spot to work. If you find later you lost something you don't know where it went.

Flip side....I have found plenty of replacement tools in ceilings

ethicalpaul

Great story, @RonnieJ !! I was a copier tech when I was a young man in the 90s and we all had situations just like that, amazing the stuff that happens in those service professions.

STEVEusaPA

I found a nice Fluke meter sitting on an outdoor unit next to a generator I was fueling by a radio tower. It was probably there for a week or so (we had no rain and it wasn't water damaged) But it was just about to start a torrential downpour, and with no place for protection I took it. I slipped a note inside the unit with my name/phone # to call.
I called every person/company related to that site and no one claimed it or said they lost it.

STEVEusaPA

RonnieJ said:

This reminds me... Early in my career I was a computer repair tech - I worked on word processors - this was a few years before the IBM PC was released. The typical workstation had a five-slot card cage - with three, closely-spaced boards in it. You could buy a new Corvette for less than the price of a word processor and printer combo.

Every year, we would perform preventative maintenance for our contract customers - clean and align the daisy wheel printer, clean the keyboards and pull the rear cover to check the fan and reseat the circuit boards. The covers had two large Philips-head screws that were notoriously difficult to get out. Many a time the screw-head would strip. I had the perfect driver that worked really well on these stubborn screws.

At some point, I lost my favorite driver - couldn't find it anywhere. Nor could I find a replacement that worked as well. I looked everywhere I went, knowing I left it on a job somewhere.
Eventually, I quit looking.

A year or so later, I had to drive out to the farthest reaches of my territory to perform p.m. at this real-estate firm. I opened the cover on the first machine, and there was my trusty screwdriver, sitting precariously between two circuit boards. I must have dropped it, got distracted, and used another driver to reinstall the cover screws.

I was overjoyed - I had found my driver, and avoided the embarrassment of another tech discovering my mistake. I was really lucky that nobody tried moving that machine or bumped it with the power on - it could have shorted out the card cage and wreaked havoc.

After that experience, I learned to always put my tools, keys, and wallet in the same place - so I would notice anything missing before leaving a work site. Somehow though, I'm still looking for a few missing tools.

R.

When I do service, especially for oil, I use a tool bucket buddy set-up with everything in it's place. When putting a burner back together, I put every tool back in it's place as I finish each task, even if I will need it again. This way I know I didn't forget anything. There's been a couple times where a wrench or driver wasn't in it's spot, I open the burner back up and forgot to tighten something.
And like you said, I can look at the inside or outside of the bucket at a glance and know if I left a tool on site before I leave (doesn't mean I know where I left it).

RonnieJ

@STEVEusaPA - you get the Ethics Award! I'm not sure where @ethicalpaul got his name, but maybe he wouldn't mind sharing the moniker ;-)

STEVEusaPA

It was an anomaly...jk

ChrisJ

@Steve Minnich

How do you see this while playing vinyl in the den?

Tinman

I make time for both 😎.
Check out what saw today and at least once a week.
Brick set Kewanee, originally coal of course, and a lead melting, plug type LWCO.

Lance

You guys have experienced the contractors universal tool lend / borrow system that has been in use since the wheel was invented. Anyone can join anytime. Just leave or find something. When you are done in life, leave it all to the next new tech. I personally left a Simpson 260 meter, ouch! but found an amp probe inside a blower in a furnace, a flashlight in the rafters, left a screw driver in an attic, left a few sockets, and a flashlight somewhere. And I almost left a truck in a parking garage, until I realized an identical garage next to it was where I parked! Can't be to careful! Oh and I left my heart in high school but found a new one in college.

SeanBeans

I hate losing ridgid tubing cutters.

And HAND SEAMERS.. I’ve gone thru so many pairs I don’t care to remember

BradHotNCold

You guys crack me up, but I love and respect all of you. Oh, and thanks for the tools you left at my house — guess it wasn’t worth a return trip to pick it up after I called and left you a message! Dandy crescent, though...

DanHolohan

LOL!

Jamie Hall

Cheer up. At my age, I'm quite capable of putting something down, not moving from the spot, and not be able to find it five minutes later...

Fred

Jamie Hall said:

Cheer up. At my age, I'm quite capable of putting something down, not moving from the spot, and not be able to find it five minutes later...

I seem to do that all the time, @Jamie Hall ! When I'm working on a project I put all of my tools in a bucket. If I have anyone helping me, I always say "Put it back in the bucket". That has become my mantra. Whenever any of my friends/family helps me they all now say "Put it in the bucket!" We all laugh and move on.

JUGHNE

"But where did I leave the bucket"

ratio

I found a really nice 3-AA LED Maglight above a ceiling once, still lit up.

It was mine, I had left it there a week ago. Had no idea it was there!

DanHolohan

@ratio, what did the Maglight say? ;-)

TattoolGuy

I love the last picture that Steve left one an old beauty and inefficient monster at the same time. R.i.p.7/7 lol

DanHolohan

I’m smiling at the message on the cardboard sign.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Walk out to the truck and forget what you went out there for. Walk back into the job and then remember what you needed

nicholas bonham-carter

This reassuring to hear that I am not the only one to be forgetful!—NBC

BobC

55 years ago I used to fix TV's to make money after school, I can remember finding tools inside console TV's, I paid for that by leaving my tools inside them.

A few years ago a contractor left a 16ft ladder that can be bent into a work platform and it wasn't a cheap one. I called and left a msg TWICE, that ladder now lives in my garage.

Bob

GroundUp

When I was a 1st year apprentice, back in the summer of 2008, my foreman convinced me to buy a Leatherman even though I thought it was ridiculous to have something on my belt all day. I lost it after about 3 days and NEEDED another one, as I no longer knew how to live without it. Fast forward 10 years, to the summer of 2018- 4 companies later- I get a call from the shop to go remove some baseboard at this high school for the abaters demo the asbestos glazed brick behind it. Turns out it was the same building, same area we had done the remodel 10 years ago and I vaguely remembered the job. I even made a comment to my coworker about having lost my first ever Leatherman here 10 years ago and joked about finding it. Literally the very first ceiling tile lifted to find isolation valves for the radiation, my coworker is laughing his head off and hands me a shiny new Leatherman that was laying on top of the tile with the flat screwdriver out. It was mine, I remembered venting air from that unit

SeanBeans

@GroundUp

It was meant to be