Easy way to find that lost part in the carpet

[Jon Cole]

Using a vacuum cleaner to find a lost part in the carpet is no fun. Who wants to cut open a vacuum cleaner bag and paw through all the dirt?

We just bought a Dyson V7 stick vacuum. No bags to deal with. Just a clear plastic container. Just empty it before you start to vacuum for your part, and if it's in that carpet, you'll find it.

if you ever need to buy a new vacuum I highly recommend these stick vacuums with clear compartments.

[Jim N]

Those vacuums look real nice.  Thanks for sharing.

[jaymcminn]

I LOVE my Dyson V6. And yes, it's found more than a few missing parts for me too!

[rattle can man]

I have one of those human powered sweepers. Just a brush that goes around as you push it. Less muck to look through to find your part.

[bobss396]

Welcome to my world. I just crawl around with a flashlight... the cat thinks I am playing.... or I give up and make another piece. Some parts are real small, like picking fly turds out of black pepper while wearing boxing gloves. In my old age I am getting smarter... if I need 8 of something, I make up 10-12 of them. If I need only 2, I make 3 or 4...

[stitchdup]

no need for a fancy vacuum, just put a pair of nylons over the nozzle and it will catch it at the nozzle.

[NOBLNG]

  On 5/9/2024 at 11:17 AM, bobss396 said:

Welcome to my world. I just crawl around with a flashlight... the cat thinks I am playing.... or I give up and make another piece. Some parts are real small, like picking fly turds out of black pepper while wearing boxing gloves. In my old age I am getting smarter... if I need 8 of something, I make up 10-12 of them. If I need only 2, I make 3 or 4...

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Yeah, I’ve spent half an hour looking for a part that took me ten minutes to make.?

[Big_John]

  On 5/9/2024 at 11:23 AM, stitchdup said:

no need for a fancy vacuum, just put a pair of nylons over the nozzle and it will catch it at the nozzle.

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About 30 years ago, I dropped a hard contact lens down a hotel drain when I was out of town for work.  They were about $85 each to replace (in mid 90's money) so I called the front desk and they sent up their maintenance guy.  He asked me for a sock and placed it over the nozzle of his vacuum cleaner and sucked that lens out of the drain first try. Tipped him $10 (again mid 90's money) and learned to always cover the drains.  

[StevenGuthmiller]

Just an old fashioned "Dust Buster", or as in my case, a "Dirt Devil" power sweeper works perfect.

Everything goes into a small receptacle smaller than your fist, making finding tiny parts simple.

 

 

 

 

Steve

[Big_John]

I drop a lot of stuff because I'm just clumsy and the usual was to get down on my knees (which really hurts) and look with a flashlight.  

I had a LED strip light that I was going to set up over my printer and it was laying on the floor when I dropped a part. I switched that LED on and it lit up the  entire floor so nicely that I've left it sitting there so I can search for anything that gets dropped. 

 

 

[bobss396]

I worked in an R&D machine shop for almost 5 years. You could eat off the floors, the place was cleaned by a crew after we left. Come in the next day, the floors were cleaned and polished. The machines cleaned and oiled.

We worked on a lot of absurdly small parts in any material. Most of the time we carried extra parts into the final operations.

Once in a while, one of us dropped a part and would spend too much time looking for it, although there was enough for the order.

More than once, I would come in the next morning... and the lost part was right on the floor, in spite of the shop undergoing a good cleaning the previous evening. I'm talking parts smaller than an 0-80 hex nut.

[carrucha]

Thanks for the suggestion.  A few years ago I was finishing up Revell's 1966 Suburban.  This build fought me all the way to the end.  The last part to attach was the clear back up lens.  It slipped out of my hands and into the carpet and disappeared.  I spent 10 minutes on my hands and knees with no luck.  I was really upset because I was almost done and this happened.  Out of frustration, I started fluffing the carpet where I thought the lens was and it popped right out.  I quickly attached the lens and the build was finally done!

Edited May 19, 2024 by carrucha

[Tom Geiger]

My model room was a bedroom, so it has a hardwood floor.  When I drop something (note I didn't say when!) I get down on my hands and knees and sweep the floor with a business card.  I find all kinds of stuff, some of which I didn't even know was missing.

On my last build I needed 6 eyelets to tie down the tarp on my roof rack. I only had 5 left!  Later on I dropped a photo etch interior door handle. I not only found the handle and some other misc parts, but I found an eyelet! That gave me the 6 I needed.

 

[Bugatti Fan]

It is amazing how parts can 'disappear'.

My workshop has a laminate floor, so dead easy to sweep and find parts, right?  99 percent of the time I just put a soft broom around and then use a dust pan and brush to sweep the little pile of debris into and sort through for the part. Easy!       BUT,  the other day I dropped a shaped wire part about 25mm (1 inch) long. I heard it hit the deck but it just managed to disappear completely. You would think a part that long would be easy to find on my floor. But oh no!  I gave up after half an hour and made another! What amazes me is that I have often dropped miniscule parts on the floor and retrieved them, but not this bigger one.I

I can understand why jewelerry craftspeople have a leather apron they wear that is also attached to the front of their work bench to catch precious metal filings.

Edited May 20, 2024 by Bugatti Fan

[bobss396]

I lost another part and it was 1/8" square by 5/16" long. Crawled around on the green-ish carpet.... nada. So I made more. I was house cleaning, getting ready to vacuum and figured I would sweep with a broom first. I looked in the dust pan... there the part was! 

I would never figure how a part could bounce that far on a carpet. Maybe it takes a leap off my knee. 

[stitchdup]

when i set up my model room it already had a dark blue carpet. i was working on my rs6 and was about to fit the drivers nirror when it pinged away. since the room only had a bench in you'd think a fluorescant orange part would be easy to find in am empty room but it never showed up. and out of all the mirror files by denisovan the one i need isn't among them

[bobss396]

In my old kitchen (before the 1997 gut job and remodel...) I lost the completed steering wheel to a '59 Impala while sitting at the kitchen table. I looked everywhere, under the radiator, under the appliances. Like it was blinked into another dimension, aka a Twilight Zone episode.

I gutted the kitchen myself, looked diligently for the lost part. Nowhere to be found. No matter, I had used a steering wheel from something close enough.

[customline]

  On 5/21/2024 at 11:36 AM, bobss396 said:

In my old kitchen (before the 1997 gut job and remodel...) I lost the completed steering wheel to a '59 Impala while sitting at the kitchen table. I looked everywhere, under the radiator, under the appliances. Like it was blinked into another dimension, aka a Twilight Zone episode.

I gutted the kitchen myself, looked diligently for the lost part. Nowhere to be found. No matter, I had used a steering wheel from something close enough.

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I remember that episode, Bob. Send the dog under the bed. ?

[1930fordpickup]

You know the jar or box full of screws that you have on the work bench. I have knocked it over more than once. I was told to take a magnet and put a ziploc ( any thicker plastic bag) over the magnet. Use the magnet to pickup the metal objects, then use the plastic bag to pull them off the magnet. Now the metal parts are trapped in the bag like the nylon over the sweeper end. It works. 

[Bainford]

I was scratch building a side mirror for an MGB Roadster. I put a lot of work into and it was looking great. I gave it a coat of Molotow. I was admiring it, holding it by the mounting pin with a pair of tweezers when it pinged away. I had no sense of what direction it went. I searched to floor for over an hour on hands & knees with a flashlight. A very thorough search to no avail. So I reluctantly threw in the towel and spent the next evening making another one. And then the same thing happened, admiring my work (maybe the sin of pride was upon me) and it pinged away. I couldn't believe it happened twice, but this time I had a sense of its trajectory. After a couple minutes I found it half way across the room, and when I bent down to pick it up, there was the first one lying just an inch away from it.

On another occasion I was removing the contents from a Monogram S'cool Bus kit box when a front tire dropped to the floor. I told myself "I'll get that in a moment" and didn't watch where it rolled. It's a whole tire, easy to find. But a moment later when I tried to find it, it was no where to be seen. I tore that room apart but could not find it. Over the next year I made two more ridiculously thorough searches but it was nowhere to be seen. Three years later I inexplicably found it by chance when moving the freezer completely in another part of the room. How did it get there?

[Mattblack]

I'm glad it's not just me...

See the set of little storage boxes on the left of the desk?

The other day I took a set of the wide steel wheels from the MPC Dodge Monaco kit out of there to look at using a pair of them on another build. Dropped one between the desk and the plastic drawers on the left. Pulled everything out, looked in the drawers incase it had 'jumped' into one... nothing. I only need a pair for what I'm planning, but still...