What did you do today?

[Bob Engelhardt]

Organization is good.

I had just finished a little project and was standing at my bench about to put the tools away. I felt proud of myself for the organization that was going to make that putting-away easy. So I counted: there were 21 tools that I put away without moving - just standing at the bench (hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, files, calipers, etc, etc). Another 2 required that I turn around and take 1 step.

And I'll know where they all are the next time that I need them.

[Cenedd]

And I'll know where they all are the next time that I need them.

If you're anything like me Bob, you'll know where they should have been next time you need them! I tried to outwit myself by putting a second chuck key on the mag bar so that I'd know where one was.....and now I just find there are two chuck keys missing

[Cheap Jon]

The worst thing that I do is put something in a place so it wont get lost, then I can't find it. The older I get the more often it happens.

Jon
SW Mi

[Dan Dubeau]

Glad I'm not the only one. Every time I say "I'm going to put this in a special place so I don't lose it". I lose it.

[mklotz]

Even if you are religious about putting tools away, having a too small shop (who doesn't?) means tools and supplies will get stored where there is space, not necessarily in some obvious, logical place.

I dealt with this problem by having a Woist (German for "where is it?") file on my computer. Anything stored in a non-obvious location gets an entry in that file. Each entry contains the name and location of the tool/supply along with "tag" words that might be used in a search for it.

Sitting comfortably at my desk as the computer searches the file for what I want is a lot better than digging through stacks of dusty boxes.

[Cenedd]

mklotz That helps for deliberate storage but I find the most frustrating are things that I've put down without thinking about it. Blissfully unaware of where I've put them down, they simply vanish until the air turns blue with colourful language. My glasses are the worst as once I've put them down, it's that much harder to see them even if I am looking the right place!

[Bob Engelhardt]

Even if you are religious about putting tools away, having a too small shop (who doesn't?) means tools and supplies will get stored where there is space, not necessarily in some obvious, logical place.

Yabut .... using the obvious, logical places for the most used tools goes a long way. My every day stuff is above the bench, in drawers under the bench, or 1 step behind me in more drawers (small shop with only 3' or so in front of the bench).

I dealt with this problem by having a Woist (German for "where is it?") file on my computer. Anything stored in a non-obvious location gets an entry in that file. Each entry contains the name and location of the tool/supply along with "tag" words that might be used in a search for it.

Sitting comfortably at my desk as the computer searches the file for what I want is a lot better than digging through stacks of dusty boxes.

How about a software layer on top of your data? Alexa has an API (I think), so you could use it to access your tools. "Alexa, where is the coil spring compressor?"😉

[Ridgerunner]

Finished fabricating a trailer hitch vise mount. Extra support from an old trailer jack. The vise height is adjustable so longer items can be supported with the truck bed. I designed the adjustment holes so a pin can be placed in a hole and the vise lowered to the top of the mount. Then a pin can be put in the aligned mount hole. 2nd picture. Third picture shows the vise is of a type that can be rotated for regular flat jaws or pipe jaws.

[Cenedd]

How about a software layer on top of your data? Alexa has an API (I think), so you could use it to access your tools. "Alexa, where is the coil spring compressor?"😉

You know where that'd lead though, right?
"Alexa, where is the coil spring compressor?"
"In the post, Dave....I've debited your account."
"Alexa, cancel order!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."

[mattthemuppet]

Finished fabricating a trailer hitch vise mount.

that's a really cool set up, bet that'll get alot of use.

yesterday I introduced my friend to my favourite scrapyard, River City Steel. I needed to clear out my garage and he needed some 18ga steel sheet for making patch panels for the F100 he's working on. We took 270lb of scrap (bunch of cast iron brake disks, some structural parts from my car that the colision place gave me and lots of other bits'n'pieces) and came back with 100lb of scrap (steel sheet for him, stainless/steel/alu rounds and rods for me) plus $3

Even better, I found a run capacitor on a scrapped AC unit in a pile which I used to fix our AC at home (Amazon screwed up my order ). Cost less than a dollar and my family were VERY happy to have AC again.

[Cenedd]

Mainly supervising today. Anytime I tried to do anything of my own, the phone or the doorbell rang. Gas meter moved today and all sorted but yesterday they came to dig up the drive to get at the gas main. How do you find the pipe? With a big spiked steel pole apparently: swing, thwack, pschhhhhhhhht. What's life without a little danger and drama to keep you alive?!

[Bob Engelhardt]

... How do you find the pipe? With a big spiked steel pole apparently: swing, thwack, pschhhhhhhhht. ...

That pipe must have been put in a long time ago! "Modern" installations have a wire laid alongside the pipe & accessible at the meter. To locate the pipe, the wire is connected to a signal generator and that signal can be detected on the surface & the pipe traced.

[Cenedd]

I can't say I've ever seen that this side of the pond. Sounds good though. To be fair, the game they were playing should more correctly be called "Don't find the pipe"....they just played badly.
Also a one-in-a-million shot you couldn't do if you tried; anything less than dead centre and it would have glanced off.
They've done a good job splicing it and sorting out the rest of the pipework so my faith is slightly restored. Given that we've found water pipes laid through (bisecting) drains by steerable boring (the kind with cameras) crews before we moved in.....ah, words fail me for some of it. Run out of sanity and patience now....not that I had much spare to start with of at least one of those!

[Richard P Wilson]

Don't take anything for granted when it comes to service installations. I've seen telecom cables laid through surface water carrier drains for about 200m, but the worst was in a steelworks. To extend a building we had to remove part of a redundant 18" cast iron waste water recirculation pipe. We located it, client came out, identified it as dead, so, while clients engineer was standing there, we hit it with the excavator bucket. It broke, revealing that 'someone' in the past had used it as a sleeve pipe, not only for a gas pipe, but an electricity cable as well. No records of it being done.

[PStechPaul]

I've been doing a brake job on my old 1989 Toyota 4WD pickup. The right front caliper had frozen from rust, and needed to be replaced (again). This time it was just making grinding and thumping noises, whereas the last time it would get so hot that the brake fluid was boiling and the brakes were gone until they cooled off. Anyway, it was not a terribly hard job, except that the wheel lug nuts were almost impossible to remove. Some PB Blaster and some arm wrestling with big wrenches eventually got them loose. I blamed my mechanic for over-torquing them with his impact wrench, but I don't know for sure if he even took the wheels off. I think we did that job in May.

But the left rear brake cylinder had been leaking badly and brake fluid was all over the outside and inside of the rim as well as the drum. So we got all the brake shoes and hardware off and sprayed everything with brake cleaner - nasty stuff you shouldn't breathe, but it sure loosened up the years of crud and left it looking almost like new. The brake shoes were hardly worn and should be fine now that they've been cleaned up. We also looked at the right side and there was considerable leakage under the rubber boots, so that one will also be replaced. Just waiting for this 100 degree heat wave to subside to finish the job. Brake lines also needed replacement because they were corroded and hard to remove without damage.