Finding Lost Tools

[Owain]

Did Allegros come in any other colour?

Owain

[Chris Bacon]

All held together with *lashings* of lime mortar.....

N.B. this is supposed to be a joke, not a dig at you.

[TheScullster]

"Kevin" wrote

Ran over a pair of long nose pliers on a motorbike 25 years ago - went back and picked them up - still use them frequently (presume they were lost!).

Had a hot water cylinder leak due to very premature failure of the cathode protector. Discovered rusting pair of pipe grips in the bottom of the storage tank feeding it!

Phil

[Bob Mannix]

Working on the front suspension of my car (Singer Gazelle - it was while ago) when the spanner slipped, flew out of my hand and disappeared completely noiselessly into thin air. I spent ages looking round a (completely clean) yard with a magnet, looking down drains, in my clothing etc. Eventually I gave up and assumed I was mad. After a while I noticed the ends of the sills on the car were open.

The spanner had flown into the open end of the sill, without touching the sides, and landed inside with not so much as a clank.

I also spent several weeks driving my mini with a screwdriver, a spanner and a pair of pliers lodged along the top of the front bumper.

Radiator bleed keys - don't get me started on them. I tie a huge piece of wood to them now with the legend "Is this what you are f*cking looking for?"

[Guy King]

The message from "Bob Mannix" contains these words:

About thirty years ago we took my grandma to an old folk's home for a week so we could go away on holiday. While installing her I noticed that the top foot of the iron radiator was cold and grumbled about wishing I had a bleed key. Mum asked what one of them was, so I described it.

"Oh, I've got one of those in here somewhere....I've often wondered what it was" and upended her handbag onto the bed.

Apparently she'd had it for about eight years moving from bag to bag as appropriate.

My own bleed key is on a tag in the keysafe along with all the other keys - except the one to the keysafe, of course. That's in the other safe!

[chris_doran]

A while back, an envelope with 4 penny blacks was found in a book bought at a jumble sale. It sold for over =A31000 on eBay.

I guess the ultimate story on these lines is the welder, hammer in hand, who got sealed in between the double-hull of an ocean liner. But it seems to be an old sea-dog's tale:

to radiator keys. I have the solution: Many years ago I parcel I received had burst open in the post and was resealed by the PO. Included were a few things from someone else's parcel, among them huge bag of radiator keys. They're made of rather grotty alloy, so they break easily, but when you've got that many... Anyone who wants a few is welcome to e-mail me, _if_ I can remember where the bag is :-)

Chris

[Ben Blaukopf]

I'm actually going to do that the moment I get home.

Ben

[Mary Fisher]

Andy! Haven't seen you here for ages :-)

Ours was dark blue :-(

Mary

[meow2222]

lol. If only it worked.

[Ian White]

Know the feeling. Sometimes I think 'Otto Pilot' leads a totally separate existence from me.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , [e-mail] writes

That sounds like a 100E engined series II Morgan?

regards

[Aidan]

Keys loaned from building site offices are sometimes welded to a chain. The other end of the chain is welded to a man-hole cover. The keys are rarely mislaid or taken home in someone's pocket.

There was a Royal Navy patrol boat which was decommissioned and sold to some African state in the '60s. In the '80s-ish it was sold again & wound up back at it's makers for conversion into a yatch. Whilst cleaning 30 years worth of gunge from the bilges they found an obsolete

1960s RN-issue Sterling SMG. Sterlings got it, soaked it in parrafin overnight, hosed it out and found it still worked (they would say that though).

[Lobster]

Well go on then - how!!??

David

[Bob Eager]

Someone was doing some clandestine cow milking...

[Adrian C]

Used to work in an office where someone was a bit miffed at his desk stationary items (pencils, stapler etc...) always being used and never returned. That kind of stopped after he started labelling the items with

"Stolen from Dave Clayton"

(hello Dave if you find this in google, one day!)

[Mary Fisher]

How did the cow get in there?

Oh, don't say it, through the five bar gate ...

Mary

[g.harman]

Working as teenager on a nearby farm I was cleaning out a barn and found on top of a beam a single barrel shotgun. The wooden stock was completely rotted away and it was so rusty that it would not open with normal force. Not knowing if it was still loaded it was unwise to press further and the gun was dropped down a disused well. The Farmer could just remember his Grandfather cursing as to where he had put his gun when the farmer was a boy. It must have been on that beam just above the door since about 1920.

Slightly more bizarre was finding a socket wrench and socket in one of the mangers,conclusion was that it had fallen off a tractor and got baled up in the hay. Nobody could remember loosing one.

G.Harman

[Dave]

I own two Rover 45s. The second one was bought, just after the company went into liquidation, for a song. A few days later, my wife and I were due to visit our daughter in Portsmouth for a week. The thought of leaving keys for the older 45 disturbed me, so I hid one in an obscure place and decided to take the other one with us.

Unfortunately, I had a bit too much whisky the night before we travelled and this was the time when I hid the keys.

When we got back from Portsmouth, it took me 3 days to find the hidden key. The one that I thought I had taken with me did not turn up at all.

Four or five weeks later, I decided to bite the bullet and go out to buy a replacement. It cost me over £80-00.

Two weeks later, I wanted to clean the windscreen of the second car and went to get the duster from the small 'glove' box to the right of the steering wheel. Low and behold, there was that very expensive key.

I am now the not proud owner of 3 keys for the same car.

Dave

[Dave]

This is not a tale about tools, but I feel like one whenever I remember it...

During the very hot summer of 1976, I worked for Hawker Siddley (sp) at the old Avro works at Chadderton, Oldham.

I used to drive an Austin Mini van and quite often gave one of the inspectors a lift home. When the summer heat arrived, we had to open the doors for several minutes before we could live with the smell that came from within.

This went on for several weeks until I found a paper bag under the drivers seat that contained the remains of my last sea fishing trip. It was some very smelly rag worm that I had used for bait :-((

Dave

I never did go fishing after that.

[Guy King]

The message from Dave contains these words:

Oh, don't. Harrow Scouts once left a couple of mackerel in a bin bag in their Commer Walkthrough bus. For several weeks. During a hot summer.