OT: Gremlins are at it again.

[loose nut]

I need some 1/8" thick aluminum strips 3/8" wide. First I slashed (and I mean slashed) them out with a hacksaw, milled one side on all of them and then the other set on a parallel to get the thickness . OK so far but were is the third one. They where all on the mill table and now I can only find two. I have look everywhere and I can not find the third one. It was right there one minute and then............

I hate gremlins.

[Puckdropper]

Sometimes I claim that scientists have invented invisibility devices, but are really bad at aiming them. That's why things disappear in plain sight!

[38_Cal]

Every shop I've ever worked at or had contained a black hole that moved about in the shop, eating the occasional screw or part. The shop black hole has a cousin that lives in the laundry room and eats socks.

[J Harp]

It happened to me today. I put a piece of threaded rod in the three jaw and faced and chamfered it, went to remove it, and the chuck key had vanished. After about fifteen minutes of searching I opened a drawer beneath the chip pan and there it was hiding out.

[Toolguy]

I finally figured out the sock thing. I buy a dozen pairs of the same kind and color. Then it doesn't matter if one gets lost, they all match each other. If 2 get lost, I'm back to even pairs. If 3 get lost, doesn't matter, etc.

I may not live long enough to figure out the black hole in the shop thing.

[kendall]

I finally figured out the sock thing. I buy a dozen pairs of the same kind and color. Then it doesn't matter if one gets lost, they all match each other. If 2 get lost, I'm back to even pairs. If 3 get lost, doesn't matter, etc.

I may not live long enough to figure out the black hole in the shop thing.

This is my solution as well. Same socks never get mismatched. Another thing that helps is buying ugly socks, then nobody in the house will steal them!

Too many gremlins around my shop, taking something apart, remove the final bolt while holding it in place with one hand, set wrench down because it takes both hands to move, turn around to set the part on a bench, reach back to get the wrench and it's nowhere in sight. after repair/rebuild you look for the wrench and find it 30 feet away on another bench, I know my arms don't stretch that dang far!

[lakeside53]

Me too, but so when one wears out the "pair" isn't gone. I do the same with gloves.

[darryl]

I bought about ten pair of black socks once, using the same logic that seems to afflict most of us. Some time later my friend bought be another several pair, also black. Now there is always an odd one out at laundry time, and to boot I always seem to pull a pair where one is really black and the other is less so. Not that I care, but it can be a chore for the partially conscious ocd morning mind at times.

[Richard P Wilson]

6 months ago I made a compound gear, 127T/135T so I could cut imperial threads on my metric lathe. Its about 8" dia and weighs several pounds, so not small. I needed it last week, but can I find it? No way! I even began to think I was imagining that I'd made one, but no, I've got photos of me cutting it. I've turned the place upside down, no luck at all. I've been reduced now to making another one, 2 days work, plus the cost of 2 cast iron blanks. Soon as I've made the new one, I bet the other one turns up!

[loose nut]

Could be aliens I suppose?

[Richard P Wilson]

Could be aliens I suppose?

Aliens that break into my shed and steal my 127/135T gear so they can cut some imperial threads on the metric lathe in their space ship? Hope they don't just toss it out of the window when they've finished with it.

[Lu47Dan]

Try losing your logsplitter in the woods.
I cut up a bunch of down trees in a neighbors wood for firewood a couple of years back, I would ride my four wheeler over and cut for about three to four hours, I would than go home by the trails. After all the trees were cut up I took my tractor and 6 X 12 6000lb cap. trailer over with the splitter on the back of it. I would split the wood and stack it on the trailer to make the trip back to the house. I finished a load and took it back to the house and on my return I was sure I had been splitting on the first pile of firewood round along the trail. When I got there to that spot the splitter was not there. I got off the tractor and investigated the area around the pile but no luck with finding any evidence as to what had happened to the splitter, until I walked down the trail farther.
I found the splitter set up on the second pile of firewood rounds just as I had left it after the first load.
Now these piles of wood were not small the first pile took four loads to haul it to the house, about 1 - 1.25 cord per load. The second pile took five loads to haul it to the house.
I still to this day think the first pile disappeared into another dimension for awhile!
Dan.

[kendall]

Me too, but so when one wears out the "pair" isn't gone. I do the same with gloves.

Yep! Used to buy jersey gloves in bulk, lately I've taken to buying bulk ambidextrous gloves with the rubber dots on both sides. Look funny, but now I'm never left with a huge collection of right hand gloves!

[browne92]

Don't forget the other two gremlins. First, there is the Cable Gremlin. Because you know there is nothing you could have done to tangle the cables behind your computer/stereo/TV so badly. Second is the Car Radio Gremlin. Because you know there is no way you left the volume up that high when you last got out of the car.

[duckman]

I found that things that I lose all the time get a coat of bright orange paint, I just use the stuff you mark the ground with, my gremlins don't like it on there hands so things don't get lost or moved as often.