Oh Wheeere IS IT!?

[TerraHertz]

Back in Nov 2013 I took apart a workbench I'd been using since I built it in my teens. It didn't fit the new layout in my electronics area, so I unscrewed the bolts and put the pieces in the storage shed.

Now I'm doing a spring clean rearrangement of both the electronics area and the mechanical workshop. Decided I could fit that old workbench in the back corner of the mech workshop. Fetched all the wooden parts of the bench.

But do you think I can find the BLOODY BOLTS? Noooo....
I'm certain I put them somewhere sensible and safe. Probably in a small box, or a tough plastic bag. Maybe even labeled "for old desk" or something like that. But wheeere did  I put it? I'd have thought they should be  in the nuts and bolts shelving. Specific area for big bolts like that, and even more specific containers for cup-heads. Nope... not there. Nor in about four other places, in diminishing order of likelihood/sanity.

I found some other bolts the same size (5/16" cup-head) but only half as many as I need. Can buy more tomorrow, but this was supposed to be assembled tonight, so more stuff can be done. Now it's just stuck. (Stream of curses...)

Hands up whoever else is certain they must be getting Alzheimers?

I give up. Going to bed. OK subconscious, in the morning I want an answer from you, or you're fired.

1st pic is the last time those bolts were seen, just before I disassembled the bench. I was hoping that pic series would show me what I did with the damned things, but no.
2nd pic is the utter shambles my mech workshop is in now while shuffling stuff around. Half assembled bench in the far rear.

Edit: PS. And I just know that within an hour of getting back home from buying new ones tomorrow, I'll find the old ones.

[Deathwish]

blue box on window or filing cabinet ?. if not the borrowers have borrowed them

[TerraHertz]

blue box on window or filing cabinet ?. if not the borrowers have borrowed them

Ha, nice try. But no, the blue cube holds the tools that were on the desk before I overturned it.
No borrowers in my place, the cats got them all. No one to blame for this but myself. Sheesh.

[kolonelkadat]

My father taught me to always put the screws/bolts/lynch pins back into the holes after disassembly. This way as long as you have the parts, you have the fasteners as well. Hopefully this can be a lesson to some of the younger members here.

[TerraHertz]

My father taught me to always put the screws/bolts/lynch pins back into the holes after disassembly. This way as long as you have the parts, you have the fasteners as well. Hopefully this can be a lesson to some of the younger members here.

Yes, it's a good idea and I often do that with mechanical/electronic things. But long cup-head bolts don't screw into the wood, they need nuts. And then they can slide and stick out, also the legs and braces wouldn't stack neatly with bolts sticking out. So... better to put all the fasteners together 'somewhere safe' ha ha.

Edit: I was calling them coach bolts. Another senior moment; actually they are called cup-head bolts. There's no such thing as 'coach bolts, there are 'coach screws' which are very large wood screws with hex bolt heads.

[elex_enthusiast]

I guess you left the bolts somewhere in your storage shed. Maybe somewhere near where you dissembled the workbench. Just a wild guess..

[free_electron]

i'm pretty sure you will find them in the last spot you look.  that always happens to me.. ( probably because once found i stop looking )

when i take stuff a part i wrap all the nuts bolts and stuff in a ziplock bag , then duct tape that to the thingamajing.

[SeanB]

Same as Vincent, I try to grab a plastic bag, drop the fasteners inside and use a cable tie through one of the holes to keep them together.

Now just have to find that 5kg bucket of M8 bots and nuts to put the shelving together, I found the 5kg bucket of M6, but no M8. I think I have at least 5 buckets of shelving bolts, though the shelving is all pretty much no longer in use, too weak.

[German_EE]

Three years ago I ordered a tube of fifty solid state relays from Mouser, the project they were to be used on was still in the design stage but I ordered them anyway so I could get free shipping on my latest goody bag. Fast forward twelve months, can I find that tube? Not a chance. I've since relocated a thousand Km and everything was packed up and then unpacked at the other end and no SSRs ever surfaced. My guess is that they vanished into a black hole and reappeared as coat hangers.

[GreyWoolfe]

"Hands up whoever else is certain they must be getting Alzheimers?"

Been working on the 'z' in Alzheimer's for years   Yesterday, I lost the keys to my company van---------inside the van-------the seating portion of the van as the rest is separated by heavy wire mesh.  Took me 5 minutes to find them 

[Halcyon]

My father taught me to always put the screws/bolts/lynch pins back into the holes after disassembly. This way as long as you have the parts, you have the fasteners as well. Hopefully this can be a lesson to some of the younger members here.

I like it! So simple. Nothing worse when you have leftover screws and bits after pulling something apart.

[isaiahA]

when i give up looking for something, then i will find it!

[sleemanj]

I am terrible at looking for things, I can put something on my bench, pliers, screwdriver, roll of packing tape, doesn't matter how distinctive, and 30 seconds later proceed to spend the next 30 minutes looking for the damn thing, and I KNOW I'm probably looking right at it but just don't see it.

[free_electron]

Three years ago I ordered a tube of fifty solid state relays from Mouser, the project they were to be used on was still in the design stage but I ordered them anyway so I could get free shipping on my latest goody bag. Fast forward twelve months, can I find that tube? Not a chance. I've since relocated a thousand Km and everything was packed up and then unpacked at the other end and no SSRs ever surfaced. My guess is that they vanished into a black hole and reappeared as coat hangers.

stuff like that goes to the same place were lost socks go.

[Deathwish]

Three years ago I ordered a tube of fifty solid state relays from Mouser, the project they were to be used on was still in the design stage but I ordered them anyway so I could get free shipping on my latest goody bag. Fast forward twelve months, can I find that tube? Not a chance. I've since relocated a thousand Km and everything was packed up and then unpacked at the other end and no SSRs ever surfaced. My guess is that they vanished into a black hole and reappeared as coat hangers.

stuff like that goes to the same place were lost socks go.

ahh ha !, time to dismantle the washing machine drum then

[RJFreeman]

But do you think I can find the BLOODY BOLTS? Noooo....
I'm certain I put them somewhere sensible and safe. Probably in a small box, or a tough plastic bag. Maybe even labeled "for old desk" or something like that.

Yeah, I have found that's the problem, when I just dump stuff somewhere without thinking about it, then it is somewhere that evidently makes sense, and I can usually find it again with (relatively) minimal trouble. but when I stop and think about where to put something safely, so I can supposedly find it again, that's when I forget where I put it, and it goes missing.

[TerraHertz]

 I bought new bolts. No sign of the old ones yet. They are biding their time, waiting for the moment of maximum irony and ignominy.

Eyeglasses and tape measures are the other prime culprits for going missing. Only a few years ago I started needing glasses for reading and close work. It should have been easy enough to get in the habit of not losing them, but no. There've been some classic stupid glasses misplacements around here. Luckily I only need cheap '2 dollar shop" x1.5 glasses (or x3 for really fine work), so I eventually just bought a bundle of them. Leave them lying around where ever I might need glasses. This works quite well.

After that victory over absentmindedness, I tried the same thing with tape measures. Bought a pile of them, leave them lying around everywhere. Also works well. Except for the time I couldn't find one anywhere. Finally opened the big 'misc tools' case (a drawer of a filing cabinet), and there they ALL are. I had no memory at all of tidying them all up or any idea why I might have done it. But I'm the only one with a key to the workshop. It's scary.

[SL4P]

1) back in the same holes
2) in a tough. plastic bag, taped to the bundle of legs etc
-  the only problem I have is matching which legs to the rest of the bench(es) !!

[Kjelt]

So did you disassemble or stored something else at almost exactly the same time ?
Good chance the box that contains that stuff could contain your bolts.

But I unfortunately do recognize this problem, you bought parts for a project in March, some parts were delayed so you store them. Then in June you get the last parts, it is summer and holiday so the project is postponed. Then in september/october you find the parts from June but can not find some parts of March 
After a two day freetime search you order them again.

Luckily you can get the bolts new, I sometimes need some parts that can not be ordered new again so it has to wait till I find them.

[TerraHertz]

So did you disassemble or stored something else at almost exactly the same time ?
Good chance the box that contains that stuff could contain your bolts.

Ha ha, yes, about half the room. It was during this: http://everist.org/NobLog/20131021_Logic_Analyzer_furnace.htm

My memory isn't the only non-optimal thing around here. As part of the reorganization I'm putting in some shelves above where the old bench will sit. My 'mechanical workshop' (makes finger quote signs in air) is a very, very old and simple single car fibro garage. Probably built around 1930. When putting reinforcing steel in concrete slabs was a luxury they often skipped. In fact they also skipped the effort of leveling the ground before the pour too, so the concrete thickness varies from about 4" at one end, to 8" at the other end. And no foundations, so there are tree roots playing crunchy biscuits with the pathetic weak slab.

Anyway, this end of the shed now slopes quite a bit. In first pic the white horizontal string line is where one of the shelves will be. The line is level. At the left end, in 2nd pic. the red line is where 'level' ought to be according to the shed frame. A bit over 2cm out.  (Vertical green line is some masking tape for markout.)

So, do I make the shelf level (and it will be visibly out of line with the building structure), or lined up with the building (probably won't be storing anything on it that can roll), or a compromise somewhere between?

I hate these kind of shitty no-win situations.

Good thing is, I may not have to live with this broken-down old shed too much longer. Otoh, I may not get to enjoy it too much longer. Depends how things turn out.

[crusader66]

I recently had a little zip lock bag of diodes.  I decided I would tape them to the shelf above the bench.  Surely I won't lose them when they are hanging in front of my face?  For the next three boards I had to assemble, I could not find the diodes.   Last week, which was probably 6 months after I put them in such an obvious location, while looking for something else in my deathtrap of a shop, I found the diodes. 

[TerraHertz]

Found them! Yes, with both irony and ignominy aplenty.

This is all part of a space allocation improvement. Moved some junk out of the mech workshop room, reassemble that table in the freed-up space, and put up some shelves on the wall above it. Which then allows me to move some 'mechanical' stuff out of my electronics area, into the mech workshop room where it belongs.  Among other things my stock of nuts and bolts. Some of which is in parts drawers, and some in original boxes from suppliers.

With the shelves up now, I was sorting out boxes of fasteners while hunting for the boxes of bits I need for construction of a stand for a big sheet metal working machine. Discovered that for some reason back in 2013 I thought putting the bolts from the table in a box labeled "M10 socket head cap screws" was a good idea and I'd remember that actually meant "1/4 inch cup head bolts from the table." There's the ignominy.

The irony was in opening that box on the table for which I needed them last week. Much too late.

That's one mystery solved today, but with another one taking its place. The missing roller castors.
The stand to support the sheet metal folder needs four very heavy duty castor wheels. Only for moving it around, normally it will sit on screw-down posts so it doesn't move.
I have two 19" equipment racks of the same kind, by HewlettPackard aka whatever their name is today. Each one had two really solid castor wheels, that I removed. The wheels are permanently part of a uselessly custom metal bracket, but with the most recent pair it occurred to me to just cut the useful part out of the bracket. So I had those two in my box of roller wheels, and if I had another two they'd do fine for the metal folder stand.

But can I find what I did with the two from the earlier rack? I'm pretty certain I didn't throw them out.
Don't want to wait till they turn up, so today bought 4 new castor wheels. The missing pair will turn up soon after I finish the folder stand.

Apart from those annoyances, this project is going well. It's having a lot of those little 'karmic thumbs-up' events that make one feel good.  For instance:

* While buying some stuff for the folder stand at a place in my nearby industrial area, asked the guy if he knew where locally to get heavy duty castor wheels (Bunnings ones are so-so.) Turns out there's a great place that specializes in industrial castors just around the corner - Style Steel, 23 Fitzpatrick St Revesby. I did not expect it to be that easy.

* The old table turned out to be a PERFECT fit between the existing stuff and the end wall. Part of the row is a wooden base for a couple of bench sander-polishers, and I think I may have worked out the length of that to fit the future bench, a couple of years ago. If so, yay me for getting it right. Moving other things around would have been a huge amount of extra work.

* Buying the main steel beam to make the folder stand base, I needed a bit under 3m so asked for 3m at the steel supplier. This means cutting it from the usually 7m long sections. 100mm x 50 x 3mm wall rectangular section, is $18.83 a meter. Buying a full length is overkill and anyway I can't transport it on my car roof racks. (Well I _can_ but it's not legal on the road.)
So I'm there in the warehouse, and the guy pulls a length off the rack, and carries it over to the cutting machine. I think hmmm... that's not a full length, it's a bit over 5m. The cutting fee is $7.60. They'll be left with a barely salable 2m offcut. So I asked if I could just take it as is, for the same price. They agreed. Juuust short enough that they'd say OK, and also juuuust short enough that the warehouse guy would look the other way while I put it on the roofrack. Should really have brought the bumper bar bolt-on front support to be legal. But it's a short drive and back streets all the way.
Wheee... free steel, due to luck that they had a piece that size.

* Also at the steel supplier, when paying in cash the bill was $68.30. Turned out I had exactly $8.30 in coins in my wallet. I love it when stuff like that happens.

[codeboy2k]

Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe?

[TerraHertz]

Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe?

For once google leaves me even more mystified. What do you mean?

[Kjelt]

I think he means Cluedo boardgame, aka Clue. 

But the nice thing about misplacing/loosing something is you can purchase new shiny goodies