Never forget.

A variation: put all 72-off 3mm ball bearings in a piece of rag. Use rag to wipe hands. Eventually pick up 71 balls. Find all 'spares' are eighth. Discover 72nd. ball many years later when doing a bit of unrelated work.

I had a good result after a ping fuckit last night when I put a 4mm diameter roll pin into low workshop orbit. After a cursory look round, I resisted the temptation to do an exhaustive search and thought about the nature of the ping. I was a "dead" metallic noise not at all musical but a definite ping so almost certainly hit metal then nothing at all so it did not land on the wooden floor. Not a steel type noise so then I saw the piece of soft aluminium alloy and the pile of sawdust below and there sat the roll pin black metal against pale sawdust. Sometime a bit of analysis and thought pays off!

Best to do it when on a cherry picker or scissor lift if you want to do it properly:-)

I have a wonderful drawer slide assembly which every so often sheds a ball bearing. Put ball in safe place until one day drawer starts to bind. Take apart and then the ornament you put all the bearings in is not anywhere to be found. Brian

I can trump that with knocking over the partially dismantled cesspit pump and having some of the parts fall in the cesspit.

On occasion, in desperation, I've tried dropping another one of whatever-it-was and seeing if it ends up in the same place as the first one.

BTDTGTTS. Too many times.

Now I use a plastic box with compartments and a hinged lid. Took me a few goes to remember to close the lid every time, though.

I have a strong magnet taped to a stick:-)

The cloth surface of watchmakers benches must impact on the use of bad language.

Huh! I'm still gathering nails from the lawn after the roof job finished.

Me too. And it has a wire hook on the other end. I call it my "Stick Of Picking Things Up".

Quite. Ghod bless Anglia Fasteners who responded helpfully to "have you got one of these?" [Waves hex mushroom headed stainless steel bolt with an 'O' ring round it.]

and then you couldn't find either one

I have a plastic box with compartments. I use it for storing woodscrews. Worked well until I picked it up without closing the lid!!!!

Well, it was broken already ...

A little like your sig. This isn't an email, it is not possible to propagate viruses via Usenet and a proper sig seperator is "--"

En el artículo , Malcolm Race escribió:

I have about seven of these with various diddly fiddly bits stored.

Where did you get them from? I could do with some.

The smallish ones I use (not suitable for large screws) I get from CPC.

For a change, Maplin are cheaper than most