Front sight took off in the shop!

[Roger Fisher]

Short story for your entertainment

Set front and rear sights on last night.  front sight base still had the pouring gate.
Rather than doing the tried and true file method I decided to touch the belt sander and remove the gate thataway!   Things were going fine til (your getting ahead of me)  she got hot (I mean the sight) and she dropped out of my hand.  After crawling around on the floor with an extension cord/light for quite a while still unfound...... Soo, to the drawers I go found one similar set that in the inlet and noticed the base too short to suit me, so finally set on the 3rd sight.  It's good to have some spares for everything.  Very true!


We having fun yet

[FG1]

Ha Ha !! You find the little critter yet ?

I lost a little spring I made for a patchbox latch similar . While hitting it on buffer to remove the ugly after tempering , it caught and is still hiding somewhere !! Took a good hour to make another !

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

The same has happened to me many times.  Sometimes the part is found - sometimes not.
About twenty odd years ago, I dropped the sear spring screw from a Siler lock, after polishing, hardening and tempering it, and it disappeared into the void.  Last May, I renovated my shop, and one morning, I looked down at the floor at my feet, and there it was.  The floor has been swept and vacuumed dozens of times since the loss, but somehow the spring ended up in a safe little crack or cranny until then.
The fly from a lock tumbler is one of the worst items to misplace.

[davec2]

Taylor,

I agree about the tumbler fly.  However, in another incarnation, I set a lot of diamonds.  When one of those takes off for parts unknown, it is not only a time loss but amounts to a lot of money hiding somewhere there under the bench, or across the shop, or in a tiny hole, or...........

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Diamonds, eh!  With your skill, Dave, I'm sure you can just make another one.

[Jerry V Lape]

That diamond search hit a good spot.  One afternoon, when my two adult daughters just happened to be present, my wife looked down at her engagement ring and in a startled manor said to look - she had lost the diamond from the ring.  Without any hesitation or questions about when she saw it last, both daughters simultaneously said "Don't worry mom, dad will get you a bigger one".  About half an hour later they departed for the jewelry store to scout the prospects. 

Now under pressure, I got out an LED flashlight and holding it at a low angle began to scan the floors of the house and car.  I found that diamond in the tile nestled against the wall of the bathroom.  When they returned and began to tell me about sizes and prices I pulled out the diamond and said look Darling I was able to recover the original stone that sealed our engagement - which has such great emotional value to us.  Isn't that such a great act of providence? 

To this day they hold that the whole thing was not a put up job!  But I didn't buy it - big mistake.  About a month later they went out again and she came back with diamond ear  studs large enough to serve as headlights - which was probably my punishment for not letting them off the hook.  I learned the leason again - you are a man you are not allowed to win.  So I bought a new shotgun.  I have no idea where this will end, I just know it is not over yet.   

[bluenoser]

I find a magnet is a real handy thing to have in the shop when some small steel part disappears into the clutter.  I usually end up finding things I didn't even know I had lost.  Not much good for brass or diamonds though.

In my experience, if I do find it, it is always in the last place I look.  If I were smarter, I would look there first. 

Laurie

[billd]

We had a guy grinding a little part here a few years ago. Wheel grabbed the part and flung it.  The part was easy to find but we never found the first 1/2" of his finger.  Make sure the shelf guard is on with no more than 1/16" of gap between the guard and wheel. 
Bill

[doug]

     The cupboards for my loading bench have a kick space about 4" high so that the base of the cupboards is recessed about 2" in from the cupboard doors.  I dropped a tiny screw that bounced off the floor and hung up in the cobwebs at the top of the kick space ie about 4" above the floor.  Swept the floor with a magnet etc etc.  Found the screw about 1 year later long after I had any use for it :>(

cheers Doug

[B. Hey]

I think I can help you find all those lost parts .. Hint: They are with all the pocket knives, keys, and socks that have disappeared in the past. 

[flintriflesmith]

One of the disadvantages of working at Colonial Williamsburg in an 18th-century style shop -- besides no AC-- was the cracks between the heart pine flooring. Over the years they has grown to an eighth or even three sixteenths.

One of Murphy's rules covered the occasional fly, screw, or pen but the worst was when an apprentice, unnamed to protect the guilty, dropped an eight pointed silver star he had just finished inletting. It did a beautiful flip and went through the crack without touching either side. That would have been almost impossible to do on purpose!

Of course there was no access to the space below the floor.

Gary

[northmn]

I am putting the final finish on a rifle now.  Had a nosecap inletted and the nose cap went somewhere.  I have no idea where.  I looked for a bit, thought about buying a new one and said to heck with it and poured one over the inlet.  What is surprising is that it still hasn't shown up in plain sight on my bench.  Good to hear these reports, know I am not alone.  Bought a few parts, especailly flys because of these happenings.  I believe the Irish claim that Leprecauns hide things for a while and then put them back after you look for them as a form of amusement.

DP

[DTCoffin]

the best way to find a little part / item on the floor is walk around barefooted.You'll find it, probably cuss a little bit while your digging it out of the soft tissue,but you'll have the part .

[Darkhorse]

Having been there and done that I now am in the prevent mode. A basic part of my bench at all times is a large   thick white towel that lays across the bench at "ALL" time. All lock dissasembly is done over this towel. The thick nap will catch most of those small springs and fly's and don't let them bounce to other dimensions. Note I said most not all. But I don't remember losing a part that actually hit the towel first since I started using one.
True. They get dirty. Stain stains them. Oil stains them. Inlet black stains them. Wood gets on them and some sticks. Just like metal filings. But all is not lost. Just throw it in the washing machine and it comes out mostly white again ready for the bench.

[Jim Filipski]

Dear Roger,
 Sometimes ( not often) when I sweep up my shop I find things! Weird Things!  Well heck these are the basis for my next builds! I usually have things flying all over....this can be good  it will keep you busy!
 A sight here, a fly there, a pipe stuck into the pile of junk somewhere..it's the natural evolution of a gun builder.
One quick fix and a hundred demons to pay: it is the way of life
Old friend Jim

[Artificer]

Here's a little trick I didn't know until about 10 years ago.  Put a small flashlight down on the floor, the shadows from the light beam have quickly shown me where some tiny screws and parts went. 

Gus

[smallpatch]

OK, I can top the unsightly sight story.  I was working on a nice cherry stocked smooth rifle.  It was a Chamber's kit, and came complete with a rough cut, pre fit wood patch box blank.  I took it out of the packing, saw that everything was there, and put it back in the box.  I opened it up a week or two later, and low and behold, the patchbox lid was gone.  I have completely cleaned out my shop (twice), and vacuumed the entire floor, and that lid is NOT to be found.  Gremlins???  It's just not there.  Now to make a new lid.

[Birddog6]

I have a hidden place in my shop that I call "Never-Never Land".  I have never seen it, but it must be huge, as it probably has parts to build 4-5 rifles.  There is no telling how many parts I have lost on the floor that just disappear.....      

[northmn]

Actually the easiest way to find a lost part is to replace or make a new one, then the original one turns up.  I keep a magnetic try for lock dissassembly handy.  I have about three of them as they are very inexpensive and can be found in hardware stores.  A fly out of a tumbler can still get buy them.

DP