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Tool Ever had this happen?

Tool
T

trevj

Ultra Member
I was down in my basement poking around on a grossly overcrowded, so-called "work bench", and I moved a bag of garden stuff out of my way...

Under that was a wood box, initially, thought it was an Exacto knife kit... Nope, too heavy! Opened box. Inside was a complete Blake Co-Ax Indicator kit in it's fitted confines! Damn! I have not a single idea as to where or who that came from! I was, till then, pretty sure I did not own one such! LOL!

Main shaft was seized up on dried oil, added some oil and solvent and let it sit a while, gradually got it moving, if sluggishly. Gonna strip it and clean out the remaining dried oil tomorrow, I think, and see how she runs! Found a great YouTube video that covered a full teardown, but the simple part is what I am like to do, which is to drive out one pin, and slide the main center shaft out of it's bushings and clean and re-oil those and the main shaft. The clockworks seems to be working as advertised! Bonus!

But still baffled as hells as to where it came from. Even searched through a couple different email accounts to see if it was mentioned. Not a word! Didn't come from my time in the Military, as it does not have any of the glaringly ugly engraved markings they are so fond of.

Best guess is that it came from the shop of a late friend, via another co-conspirator that was part of that close circle, who suspects that he may have dumped it on me to see if I could fix it, as it was seized.

Funny chit! LOL! Nice, finding good tools in your shop. Be nicer if I had known they were there! :P
 
trevj said:
Funny chit! LOL! Nice, finding good tools in your shop. Be nicer if I had known they were there! :p
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You will NOT believe this!

About 3 months ago, exactly the same thing happened to me! Found a box with an old co-ax indicator in it. And NO IDEA where it came from!

Mine was not under a garden bag, and mine was not stuck and appears to work just fine. All the rods are still in the box too. Mine was in a box with a bunch of old magazines and desk stuff (paper clip holder, pen stand, etc). I wasn't expecting to find an indicator in there too. It blew me away!

The best I can figure, is that an old friend of mine gave it to me before he died. I have a few things of his that I do remember him giving me and a few I have lost. But I don't remember that one.

Is there such a thing as a co-ax fairy godfather?
 
trevj said:
I was down in my basement poking around on a grossly overcrowded, so-called "work bench", and I moved a bag of garden stuff out of my way...

Under that was a wood box, initially, thought it was an Exacto knife kit... Nope, too heavy! Opened box. Inside was a complete Blake Co-Ax Indicator kit in it's fitted confines! Damn! I have not a single idea as to where or who that came from! I was, till then, pretty sure I did not own one such! LOL!

Main shaft was seized up on dried oil, added some oil and solvent and let it sit a while, gradually got it moving, if sluggishly. Gonna strip it and clean out the remaining dried oil tomorrow, I think, and see how she runs! Found a great YouTube video that covered a full teardown, but the simple part is what I am like to do, which is to drive out one pin, and slide the main center shaft out of it's bushings and clean and re-oil those and the main shaft. The clockworks seems to be working as advertised! Bonus!

But still baffled as hells as to where it came from. Even searched through a couple different email accounts to see if it was mentioned. Not a word! Didn't come from my time in the Military, as it does not have any of the glaringly ugly engraved markings they are so fond of.

Best guess is that it came from the shop of a late friend, via another co-conspirator that was part of that close circle, who suspects that he may have dumped it on me to see if I could fix it, as it was seized.

Funny chit! LOL! Nice, finding good tools in your shop. Be nicer if I had known they were there! :p
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I wish that would have happened to me. Instead I had to spend countless hours on Kijiji and Market Place to find one that was in good shape and at a price I wanted to pay. :)
 
mcgyvers passage of time.jpg
 
it pays to check your shop now and then. You just never know what you'll find. I was going through a tool box the other day and found a Mitutoyo dial caliper, in like new condition. I had no idea it was there. It must have come from the estate of a friend many years ago. Weird.
 
Susquatch said:
I thought he was talking to me and I had much fewer words to say. Actually just two.
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Something about Sex and Travel, perchance?

@YotaBota , back when my wife and I were still speaking civilly, it was referred to as "The Uterine Tracking System" in honor of the shape being reminiscent of a direction tracking antenna, and guys not having one!
whydontu said:
Only thing I ever find is stuff I thought I had lost, and the lost items only reappear after I’ve gone to buy a replacement.
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That works for me for about everything I ever lost EXCEPT 10mm sockets! I swear they need to start selling those in bulk packs, rip one off the strip, use, and never worry about where that one ends up!
 
I usually find something I have when I buy it's replacement. Then I go find the perfect place to store that item and lo and behold, theres the one I already owned. At least I'm consistant with how I group and store things.

I did that recently with my infrared thermometer. Could not find mine ANYWHERE. Bought another one, used it for what I needed, then said, "ok, I need to store this in a spot that I will remember" Went down in the basement and opened the drawer of one of my card file cabinets with some other special measurement devices, and there was my old one lol.......I coulda have swore I checked that drawer at least 5 times........
 
I think getting old makes finding stuff you never knew you had more common. One thing that makes me remember where things are is to never move them. I have a few tools stashed in weird places in the barn that makes no sense. They are there because that is where I put them in 2008 before the barn was water tight and there were no tool boxes to put things in.

I spent a few hours looking for a piece of aluminum that I had stashed in 2008 that would be perfect for a current project. I looked for it for several hours before I remembered I used it for a project 5 or so years ago.
 
Upnorth said:
One thing that makes me remember where things are is to never move them.
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You don't need to get old for that to work..........but it helps. When you are foolish enough to move them it's still useful to put them with something else that you associate them with.....I literally found something I moved a few weeks ago that way. That was a couple of items that sat in the same place for about 15 years so I knew where they were then.

Dan Dubeau said:
Then I go find the perfect place to store that item and lo and behold, there's the one I already owned. At least I'm consistent with how I group and store things.
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How many times have I done that?????

D :cool:
 
I have a fairly awesome bunch of Dewalt 20V tools. I'm sure I've raved about them on here before. But I lacked the big hand drill. I actually lusted after that drill, dreamed about it, and waited for a sale that never happened.

One day my dreams came true though. I bought one and paid full pop. As the tool rule goes, once you have it, you don't need it anymore. Then one day a few weeks later I did but... where did I hide it? The weeks and months passed but I could never find it. So I accused my kids and my son in law. Bunch of thieves claimed they never saw it. Liars.

I tore the barn apart, and then the basement! Hard to misplace bright yellow power tools that big. But nothing.

Then one day after another unsuccessful search my wife asked me if I could remember the last time I used it. In my minds eye I guessed that might be building a deer blind out back. Out to the field I went. I looked in the blind, in the grass, and a hundred yards in all directions. Nothing.

Many unsuccessful searches later it slowly dawned on me that maybe I never actually had one. The suspicion grew. So I checked all my receipts. Nothing.

I even looked for the empty box. Nothing.

Slowly but surely I realized I only dreamed about having one and never really did. In fact, the reality is that I never owned one at all. I just wanted one so bad that I bought one in my dreams. But, as every little boy knows, dreams really can come true!

And so they did. On my birthday, my wife got me one. It wasn't actually the one I wanted so it had to be exchanged, but the real deal is now in my Dewalt toolbag. And I use it regularly. In fact, it has become the power knee for my mill when it's not being used for other things. It's a constant daily reminder that it is actually possible to lie to myself under the right set of conditions.
 
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