Lost part

The suggestions of reducing bench space are part of my own plan as well. It actually goes a bit farther than that even. Any horizontal surface is just begging to have stuff put on it.

If you happen to have a rolling tool cabinet with a bottom box and top box, there's a "handy" little shelf in the front if your top cabinet isn't as deep as the bottom. When you open the lowest drawer of the top cabinet, you often knock whatever is sitting there on the floor. The solution? Pull the top cabinet forward, in line with the other one. I still miss the handy space, but I don't miss cursing the parts as they fall on the floor, or jam under the drawer when I open/close it.

There's another simple thing that I'm still trying to master myself.... CLEAN UP! If there isn't a big mess with lots of things shoved against walls and into corners, it's a lot easier to find something you've dropped. If you're quick enough, you may even be able to follow the falling item with your eyes and trace it's approximate trajectory.

Also, I recently built a put my table saw onto a rolling platform with locking casters for my table saw. It took all of about 40 minutes, and WOW, what a difference for cleaning up and relocating in tight space for various tasks.

-Sparky

sparky961 said:

There's another simple thing that I'm still trying to master myself.... CLEAN UP!
-Sparky

Click to expand...

I have a rule that I try t live by.
All tools must be packed up into their toolboxes / cupboards at the end of the night and the lathe or mill swept down and oiled if it was used.
As its winter still here and I have no heating / insulation in my workshop any tool that is left out and not oiled will rust so its a good incentive for me to pack up each night.
It also means I always have room to move in my workshop. ALthough I must admit I'm starting to run out of places to 'pack up' things into.
I even swept and vacuumed my workshop floor on Sunday.

I have no self discipline, I am doomed.
A tool box or cabinet??? I have a tool pile and a cluster on every flat surface you can think of.
My daughter is almost 3 months old, the things she isn't old enough for is in a corner in the garage still in the boxes, they are covered with RC helicopters and the tools for them. :wall:
In front of that on the floor is all of my RC trucks and cars. :shrug:
I have too many hobbies, I am interested in everything.
-B-

One tip that works for the habitual non-putter-away-ers like me was this rule of shop cleaning-- "Once you pick something up, it has to be put where it belongs, no setting it down somewhere else"

Ahhh Shred...you speak wisdom....that method does work!...well when I follow it.... ;D

Dave

My problem is the putting away thing

Krown Kustoms said:

I have no self discipline, I am doomed.

I have too many hobbies, I am interested in everything.

Click to expand...

Sounds like we have enough people qualified to join "the forum of the doomed".
Not too many hobbies...just too many toys.

shred said:

One tip that works for the habitual non-putter-away-ers like me was this rule of shop cleaning-- "Once you pick something up, it has to be put where it belongs, no setting it down somewhere else"

Click to expand...

I agree 100% shred!
I ALWAYS put things back where I got them.



Hummmmm. Last time I had that tool it was in the garage....
scratch.gif

Rick

There...
Rake is as organized as me. I know where everything is laying.
If I put it where it belongs I will never find it.
-B-

There is mini black hole under my bench, parts fall in never to be found.
Mauro

tornitore45 said:

There is mini black hole under my bench, parts fall in never to be found.
Mauro

Click to expand...

Feed it light, and it won't eat parts. ;D

I use the vertical method of finding things. I put everything in a pile and then when I need something I become somewhat like an archeologist: go to the strata associated with the time frame of the object. It is usually somewhere near there. Do a similar thing at work with piles of paper and folders.

I long ago realized that the day I unpacked my first lathe and mill, one of the boxes also held an inter-dimensional portal, something akin to a black hole but different. It not only effects dropped fasteners and tiny parts, it allows tools and any other part not secured in a machine chuck to disappear into some other time continuum or reality. All I know is that they certainly don't seem to exist in my current reality when I go in search of them. Then, just as suddenly as they were gone... there the item is right where it wasn't a moment ago.

I've often wondered if I'm actually sharing my stuff with another "Me" in some other dimensional reality, or if some poor slob opened up his KFC box, over there, to find a carbide reamer hiding among his chunks of chicken. The reappearance of your small bushing in the sole of your shoe would tend to lend support to the KFC theory. I'm tending to lean to that theory if for no other reason than the other "Me" never seems to send back any of "His" tools... just my own.

I'm at a loss to say where in the shop this portal is hiding, since it seems to move about and follow me around. Orkin exterminators say its not something they can spray for and I'm afraid to ask NASA about it due to Homeland Security issues. Perhaps Marv can calculate a way to trap the darned thing for removal but I hesitate to ask lest the other "Me" owns a Bridgeport or maybe a Monarch that might just appear in my garage someday. Then we can get real serious about closing the stargate.

Until I'm sure it's safe, I'm keeping small children and pets out of the area while inviting certain neighbors over for coffee on a more regular basis. Nope..... my wife ain't gonna understand why my ex-wife might be standing in my garage holding the annoying dog from next door. But Hey!!.... somethings simply never return from the other side.

Steve

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Ron

:big:

Thanks I needed a good laugh.

Ha, that was great! ;D :big: :bow:

If there's another 'you'...there must be another 'Marv'...and that means nightmares for both 'me' and 'me'. :big:

What's really scary is that there's nothing to support two parallel universes. It could just as well be an infinite series of universes.

Oh my. Now it's day-mares.

Infinite Marvs...and Vernons...and Roberts...Arnolds, CCs, Bobs, Daves, Ricks, Andys...

I feel bad for all the me-s.

The concept of another me frightens me almost as much as it must frighten you.

Actually, it's funny because there is another me and he lives nearby here in southern California. Neither my surname nor my given name is very common so the existence of a nominative Doppelganger, especially one so close, is really surprising.

Shortly after I moved to SoCal, I was living in Westwood, quite close to the UCLA campus. I kept getting phone calls for "Professor Klotz" from students who wanted extensions to the due date of their semester projects. That's how I learned of the existence of my Doppelganger. It turns out he's a (spit) liberal arts, wine and cheese type who wouldn't know a micrometer from a C-clamp.

A few years ago, I stumbled across one of the books he co-edited at a library sale and snapped it up to put on my shelf next to the quantum mechanics text to impress the sort of people who are impressed by that sort of thing.



Oh, and to close the story, after a while I got really annoyed by the phone calls and started granting the students generous extensions on their project deadlines. I may have even told a few that they were excused from submitting a project.

Oh, and to close the story, after a while I got really annoyed by the phone calls and started granting the students generous extensions on their project deadlines. I may have even told a few that they were excused from submitting a project.
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Thats pretty deep, and I just thought the part is always in the last place I look, or right where I forgot I put it.
-B-