Just realized I musta left my flashlight in a base cabinet this week…a 40 min. drive to get it (each way), Ugh!
It is worth retrieving, since it is part of a cordless kit…or I could just get a new cordless set I’ve been wanting.
A few months ago, I left a ladder at a customers home…I had no Idea where I left it (had worked for quite a few customers before I missed it). They called a few weeks later, “Did you leave a ladder here?” Uh, Yeah…I’ll be right over to get it.
Anybody else in too much of a hurry to keep track of your stuff?
Replies
20 years ago I lost a 22 oz. Estwing framing hammer while off-loading const debris at a dump. I still think about that hammer.
One of my guys recently left a PC recip saw and a palm nailer on the job...got the palm nailer back but no dice on the sawzall.
Mostly though it's just hammers, tapes, and the worst, chalklines.
I leave stuff from time to time, recently a 6' stabila level. Of course it grew legs and walked away over night. A 6' step ladder had it's own legs to walk away on.
I left a plumb bob on top of a bay window and soffited it in.
I threw a hammer in a lake when I smashed my finger with it 4 times in a hour, that doesn't count because I left that by choice.
Left my Stabila plate level on a job and it was still there in the morning, felt like I just won the lotto when I saw it was still there.What's wrong with me? I could ask you the exact same thing.
--"Left my Stabila plate level on a job and it was still there in the morning, felt like I just won the lotto when I saw it was still there."Man do I know that feeling!
I've lost a sledge hammer, grain shovel, flat bar, crow bar, even a wheel barrow in demo work.Don't ask how I lost a wheel barrow.
I left my first cordless 7.2 volt makita at a job , didnt remeber where so I went ahead and bought the 9.5 makita which had just come out
couple of weeks later customer calls said he found it , great I say and go by to pick it up
his wife meets me at the door looks puzzled , he comes out says no you didnt leave it here ..great I think they decide to keep it .
about a month later I get another call "hey you want this drill or what ? "
turns out I went to the wrong customer first time .
My Senco pinner went missing, and I couldn't remember when or where I last used it. A couple of months later a painter buddy drops by a job with it.He'd been painting in a house where we'd done some punch work, and one of the kids was running around "shooting" him with it. Kid didn't want to give it up, and mom wouldn't help. My buddy knew it was mine, waited until the kid put it down, and snagged it.We hadn't even used the pinner on that job, the little peckerwood had grabbed it out of my truck... I need a dump truck, baby, to unload my head
Let's see... the landscapers took off with my wheelbarrow, and I don't know who got my first aid kit and my broom. Reminds me, I gotta pick up a broom and first aid kit. Since the landscapers took my wheelbarrow, I took theirs. Its a lot more beat-up than mine was, but it works the same.
"...never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too" - Mark Twain
Does this count?
Ex-brother in law's buddy forgot where he left his bandsaw mill, so he had to get another one.
Chalk that one up to recreational drugs.
I lost a new Stanley tape measure setting it on stud bridging before DW; found it years later when we peeled the other side for work.
Forrest
On my first sheetrock job, I walled in a 4' level and a 6' pipe clamp...taught me how to patch holes<G> I need a dump truck, baby, to unload my head
I think if we found all the tools we mis-placed over the years we could put HD out of biz. Everything above. Tapes, pancils - - gawd I must lost at least one a day. Prybars, hammers, its always the small portable things. I havent lost anything as big as a ladder (knock on wood). This thread reminded me of my electrician telling me that one of his guys had a sawzall out, and I don't know the details of how it came to be in the path of the trencher, but it was, and it was grabbed and immediately buried. I asked if he was going to dig it up and he suspected if he tried, first he wouldnt find it, and second, it was probably in pieces anyway.
"Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think -- there are no little things" - Bruce Barton
I still miss the 20oz hicory-handled Plumb I left hanging on a fence in Mexico. Have yet to find something else I like as well.
Back when I had a number of people working for me, I seemed to lose alot more stuff. Always was the guy named (I Don't Know) since he is no longer employed by me and is working for others stuff doesn't come up missing hardly anymore.
If any of you fellow BTers now employ I Don't Know, please ask him to return my Tapcon laser, 71/4" milwaukee, Makita cordless, PorterCable router,41/2" grinder and misc. wrenches sockets and other various hand tools.
I can be reached thru the board here, thanks in advance
I seem to loose somthing every time I work in an attic with blown in insulation.
--"I seem to loose somthing every time I work in an attic with blown in insulation."I lost a cat's paw that way this past Spring...almost lost my wallet up there. DOHNever take a wallet or keys into an attic or crawl space!
yep, saw that one about 10 years ago.
some guy running alarm wires in an old loose insulation filled attic. lost his keys up there and had to call his wife to come pick him up.
she was 50 miles away from the job.
what a fun ride home for him.......
carpenter in transition
"Never take a wallet or keys into an attic or crawl space!"Amen to that, and cell phone too. I lost my cell phone on a hot summer afternoon while crawling out of a low attic with blown-in insulation . Before I knew it was gone, I heard the phone ringing about 20 feet behind me. I considered for a minute or so whether to go back for it or not.BruceT
about 10 years ago, i threw a 14' 2x4 on top of my van ladder racks. it landed on top of the front rack ok, but the 2x4 landed on top of the post on the rear rack and stayed there.
million to one shot, right ?
well, i said to myself, i gotta move that or it will fall off and hit someone.
got distracted, and forgot.
end of the day comes (hot one) and we take off for home but along the way i realize i need gas, so i stopped at a station about 10 minutes from the job.
so, i'm standing there in a hot daze pumping gas and i look up at the sky, and lo and behold, that 2x4 is still balanced on top of my ladder rack post !
couldn't lose that one !
carpenter in transition
Along the lines of Tim's post, I stopped at the shop for a box of drywall nails. I got mixed up in something else and forgot about them. I drove across town, got to the job, and they were no where in sight. Frustrated, I finished what I was doing without them, still questioning where they were. After I was done, I drove back across town and stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat. One of the employees said "Hey, you've got something on the bumper of your truck. The nails had sat there the entire time going up and down some pretty steep hills, without moving a bit.
I left a key ring on my bumper that had a spare truck key, tool trailer key, backhoe key (only key I had for that machine), trailer hitch key and for whatever reason the key to our bike lock. I drove all day with that key ring on bumper and never lost it - never realised it was there until I went to unhitch the trailer that night. That's usually not my type of luck.
-Norm
You must drive more better than me.
ok, got another one.
about 20 years ago, i was working with one of the older guys (3x me) and he was working with my current boss. so the boss' dad worked for Mack trucks and while he was there he custom made a 6'6" aluminum I-beam into one of the coolest custom made levels ever.
somehow it was left on the bumper of the older guy's truck. from easton to allentown, 22 miles at 60 mph on a four lane highway. they get back to the warehouse, hey where the h__ is my level ?
god durn thing's still on the bumper
how in the h_ll i'll never know.............
carpenter in transition
I hate losing stuff so when others leave stuff behind I try to get it to 'em. In the last few weeks I've returned a 12v makita battery to the HVAC guy; screwdriver and wire strippers to the electrican; hole saw, extension, channellocks and flashlight to the plumber; and corner trowel, sanding pole, and mud pans to the drywall finisher.
I was relieved to see a $1k laser level still intact after leaving it all alone on an empty lot one day during lunch. :-)
That kind of thing (returning tools left behind) can get you friends for life. ; > )
Most aggravating is I can't find my eastwing thin flat bar ( my two other, they are thicker). I work on the roof, in the attic, second floor and ground floor, as well as outside, and sometimes I spend more time looking for a tool than the work requires.
I once worked with the bosses' son, who couldn't find his hammer...then had a leak in the new master bath shower wall and had to open it up to check the valves,, guess what we found, he was happy, the rest of us shook our heads, and went back to work. I gotta go find that flat bar.
I've lost more tools than I can think of over the years. Once I lost a favorite Stanley matt knife, a very old #99 that had once given me 16 stitches and still no feeling across two of my fingers. A year and a half later I was in the bushes on the side of this large house where I had worked on and off for years, looked down, and you guessed it. It sits in my garage now.
The worse one for me was a favorite 16" fine crosscut saw that was my grandfathers. I was working in the union at the time on this huge restoration job at the state house dome in Trenton New Jersey, and someone walked off with it. I even offered a reward, but it was my own stupid fault. I had no business bringing something like that to a job like that with all the goinks, galoots, and schwoogies of the trade world there.
I didn't actually do it, my coworker did. Left my slate ripper up on the courthouse roof....120' away from the ground.
It now is what I call a time capsule for th enext dude that gets up there.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"Enjoyning the finite of matter, in an infinite realm of possibilities...
My mind.
Don't be lookin' for it here. 8 > )
<LOL!>
I lost a classic 20-oz True Temper Rocket hammer on a job once. I've been trying to get another one ever since.
I lost an fiberglas extention ladder on the interstate one day. after that state trooper hit it, there was no way I was going back for it. never like that ladder anyway. but boss somebody must of took it out of my truck.
Last Friday morning, one of my co-workers couldn't find his hammer when he put on his tool belt. He realized he had left it out the day before but couldn't find it anywhere.
He immediately assumed that the concrete workers picked it up and gave the concrete foreman an a-- chewing because one of his guys stole his hammer. He came storming up to me and told me he wasn't going to work on a job where someone would steal things and was going home. I laughed and said go.
It turns out that one of our guys saw it laying out the night before and picked it up. We laughed about him walking off all day. We really won't miss him too much.