[DrDogwood]

Might be a little off topic but does anyone else have Gremlins in there shop? I set my 12' tape down doing a job, go to pick it up and its gone. After looking all over I find it in the next bay on the mill. I spend more time looking for a tool I just had then working. Somebody please recommend a good way to appease the little buggers before I loose my mind. I may have to start putting everything on retracting chains like my Keys are.

[homeboy]

As for tape measures I get the brightest most brilliant colour I can find -orange and yellow usually . I have a gray tape that can hide in plain sight. For smaller tools I have some kind of tray at each work area to just drop them in between use. Big thing is to train your "cranial gremlin " to drop the tools at a common spot after use. For trays I use stuff like old pie plates etc.- whatever works.

[PeteM]

Gremlins are tough. I was going to spray them but I set the can down for a minute and well, you know...

[exnailpounder]

I always set my sharpie down and can't find it. I went and bought a huge box of them and now there is one everywhere I look.

[Coldman]

It's a real problem. The way around it is to avoid putting things down. Develop a work method where everything has it's place even if it's a bucket that follows you. Tape measures can clip on your belt when away from it's place. Chalk is a pain so I keep chalk all over the place so there is always a piece handy.


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[PeteM]

I try to set up in a way that allows me to keep things right where I reach, when possible. This is a typical set up, and a lot of times I use a cart when I can, or the flip top level of my tool box.

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[Otto Nobedder]

The gremlins haunt me a lot, because I usually have three projects in different areas of the shop that I move between constantly. That's a lot of ground to cover to find a misplaced tool. I do get my exercise, though.

Steve S

[Farmwelding]

Aha I was I was confused as hell at first because I thought a gremlin was a tool or something used to keep track of tools. Kept looking around and then found it in a dictionary and then reread the post.

What kind of a shop would it be without gremlins. Hey even enter into people who happen to have sticky fingers(sneaky bastards). I find the easiest way to keep track is to keep crap in your pockets or get a pouch on your hip like me and hold tools. I keep a welder, 6" combination square, sharpie, scribe, and tape measure. Never lose anything. Write names on things helps from the visible gremlins.

Maybe blowing an air horn when you walk into the shop every morning and that will scare them away for awhile and wake you up.

[Erich]

There is only one way to appease the gremlins.

You have to admit you are a complete doofus and have lost your (fill in the blank). Only by proclaiming out loud that you are an idiot for losing some item, will the object then reappear.

Try it.

[Rupes]

Its easy, just buy 5 of everything. All my tools are on holidays at one time or another to its important to have enough that at least one will be available for work. Kinda like staff.

I must have at least 5 each of tape measures, scribes, rules, squares, levels, hammers, wire brushes, angle grinders, ladders etc. And don't get me started on screwdrivers, you don't need 5 you need 50 if there is any chance of having one on that is reasonably close to the one you actually need.

I have 6 welders as occasionally I'll misplace one only to find it later under a huge pile of tape measures, scribes, rules, squares, levels, hammers, wire brushes, angle grinders, ladders and screwdrivers.

[motox]

i have a detached garage and a attached garage i work out of
so my gremlin splits his time between the two. it gives me plenty
of un-needed exercise chasing him from shop to shop....
craig

[electrode]

It's a real problem. The way around it is to avoid putting things down. Develop a work method where everything has it's place even if it's a bucket that follows you. Tape measures can clip on your belt when away from it's place. Chalk is a pain so I keep chalk all over the place so there is always a piece handy.


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I tried that a few times and end up looking all over the shop just to realize what I am looking for is in my hand. I have already tried to put reading glasses over the ones already on my face.

[Coldman]

So it's not just me? Phew


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[Popeye the old miner]

Most of the time I work out of the back of my truck, so the gremlins live in the tool boxes or in the engine compartment of the truck... so one day me and the fella that owned the mine where I was workin was gonna tack up a few chunks of old cutting edge on the side of a trakhoe bucket for wear bars and plate

So Dave is holdin this 60 some pound chunk of iron on his knees while I go to tack weld it,... no go no weld hood and it is too big to tack without a hood...Hang on a minute Dave I gotta git my hood....Popeye this damn thing is gittin heavy git yer hood and tack this thing...Where the hell is it?....I don't know you had it last...It aint on the truck or in any of the boxes...Oh hell I'm putting this thing down til you find it...OK...Ill be damn its gotta be around here somewhere, it aint like it has legs or or wings...well shit where is it at, Popeye?...Damifino...about 30 minutes later...weldin hood falls down over my eyes...Hey Dave I found it....Go figure...I didn't feel so bad since the boss was lookin for it with me I remember the conversation like it was yesterday.

And I was a young fella then...these days I have CRS...Cant Remember Shit...except for dumb shit like the time I lost my weld hood

[kiwi2wheels]

So it's not just me? Phew


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