Anybody know where I put my............??

[Rick Potter]

I am getting really tired of not remembering where I put tools. It has gotten to the point where I have some that seem permanently lost. Sometimes I go to work on a rental and they get put in one of those temporary tool kits, only to be found a year later, after I have replaced them (got four electric testers now). I found my favorite hammer (replaced) under the seat of the truck while searching for something else.

Currently, I have been missing a 16G brad nailer for about 6 months. I am also missing a set of those slick Jessem router table guides. I thought I bought two sets when they came out a couple years ago, and one set is on my router table. I have searched for the other set for a year now, thinking maybe I only bought one set. Then I found the receipt, showing two sets.

Come on guys, I know one of you hid them somewhere, help me out here. Where did I put them?? I always put important things in a safe place. Can somebody tell me where that is??

I would call it early onset oldtimers, but it's too late for that. Wait.....didn't I have a SawStop here somewhere?

[Larry Browning]

I have accepted the fact that I will never do what I know I need to do in order to keep track of my ALL tools. It is something I always required my children to do, that never seemed to sink in with them either.
My wife and I always required our children to put away the toy they were playing with before they could play with another toy. This was a constant battle with them, but for the most part they complied at least when we were around them, but they never would do it without be told.
So Rick, always but away your toys before playing with a different one and you will never loose one. That's the only way you will ever keep up with your toys.

[Phil Thien]

I've been observed walking around the basement shop looking up, as if I'm seeking divine inspiration, or at least a convo.

Apparently started happening when I started storing tools in the joist bays.

[Jay Jolliffe]

I've walked around my shop looking for my glasses only to find out I had them on.

[Charles Taylor]

Tools I can find. Usually. It's flat surfaces I can't seem to locate.

[Jerome Stanek]

years ago I bought an expensive saw blade and placed it on my hutch till I had a chance to take it out to the shop. I had to go out of town for a week and when I came back I couldn't find it and thought maybe it fell behind the hutch. I pulled the hutch out and no blade so I was thinking that I may have pitched it when I grabbed some card board. I must have looked 10 times behind my hutch and even moved it out to paint. The last time I painted I moved the hutch back out and the blade fell off the little lip the hutch had on the back I couldn't believe that it could sit there and not fall for over 15 years.

[Bruce Page]

I have always been an anal retentive machinist type - a place for everything, everything in its place. The only time I have to hunt for things is when my wife uses a tool.
Except for pencils…

[Kent A Bathurst]

Come on guys, I know one of you hid them somewhere, help me out here.

You didn't happen to give Harold your home address, did you? He's got this cosmic tool transfer deal working.........

I have an alibi - the surgery/sling deal.

[Bert Kemp]

OK OK Rick I'll take the heat it was I, you'll find them in the bottom draw below your bench vice. Thats were I put them, if there not there then one of the other guys moved them again.

[glenn bradley]

Tools I can find. Usually. It's flat surfaces I can't seem to locate.

Coffee on the monitor . As pathetic as it sounds I have a spreadsheet. There are pages for every storage cabinet / place in the shop, shed and house. I started this years ago and there is a shortcut right on the desktop for it. Whenever I look for a tool for more than a couple of minutes, I add it to the spreadsheet right when I find it. A tool I cannot locate in a moment or two defines it as something I use seldom. Am I seriously supposed to remember that the replacement brushes for my ROS are in the 3rd drawer of the flap sander stand or that the graphite paper that I line my sander platens with is in a plastic shoebox on the the second shelf of the left hand shelf unit in the shed? These things get forgotten so I have the spreadsheet; I call it my Ginko Biloba.

[Moses Yoder]

The best time in life is when you accumulate so much stuff that you find things you didn't know you had.

[Justin Ludwig]

I have always been an anal retentive machinist type - a place for everything, everything in its place. The only time I have to hunt for things is when my wife uses a tool.
Except for pencils…

+1 except my retentiveness comes from Naval Aviation tool control. I'm bad about misplacing tools on the job site, especially when the homeowners are there being chatty Cathy (which I'm guilty of too). They look at me funny when I audibly say, "hammer on the ladder" or some other such tidbit.

[Jim Koepke]

Like Bruce said, "a place for everything and everything in its place."

Usually when something is lost, it wasn't put away or it was put in a place I thought might be better. I usually end up going to the old spot wondering what happened to it. Then recall it was moved to "a better place." Problem is I can't remember where the better place happened to be.

jtk

[Tom M King]

One of my helpers main jobs is to know where all the tools are. I knew he was going to be worth keeping when he started keeping driver bits in his pocket. I called for one, and he pulled it out. It helps a lot by me not having to take tools out or put them away. I just ask for what I want if it's not already anticipated.

[Larry Browning]

I really do envy guys who are disciplined enough to put there tools in a specific place and then put them there when not using them. I have tried doing this, I really have! I do it for maybe a few days, but then one day I look up and tools are all over the place. I just can't do it! Plus it really does slow me down and breaks my work flow. Just as soon as I put something away, I need it again and gotta go get it out again. What a PITA! It is just not in my DNA.