Dropping parts

[SuperStockAndy]

Okay...this topic is ALMOST pointless, but....

Do you guys drop as much stuff on the floor as I do?

I mean, I even lost a drill bit down there. I'll find it when it ends up in my foot And there are probably so many model parts down there I could completely build one.

Anyone else have this problem?

Edited July 25, 2011 by Android

[SuperStockAndy]

I always work over my desk, that's what especially makes me mad.

In my room, I've got carpet just a bit smaller than my room. Sometimes the part either gets lost in the carpet or under it.

[Mr. Moparman]

Let me put it this way, the caroet gremiln does not want to visit the bench!

[Junkman]

I really envy the Australians. When they drop a part, it's conveniently hanging off the ceiling.

Here in Europe, I experience an entirely different phenomenon. Parts leave the workbench floor-wards, but they never arrive there. During their relatively short journey, they are sucked through a gap in the space-time-continuum only to reappear years later, long after you finished that expensive kit by buying yet another even more expensive kit just for this one part, that spent all the time in a parallel universe.

Oh man, why did Newton have to invent this gravity thingy? Or was it gravy? Or grafitti?

Edited July 25, 2011 by Junkman

[Greg Myers]

How about the #11 trim, nipper clip, where you are trimming a part off a tree and . . . 5-4-3-2-1- we have lift off.

[jw78z28]

My favorite is when the part lands in a project box under the work bench, but you didn't see which one you just heard it.

[SuperStockAndy]

Yup, you drop a part and you're like, "What the heck did I just drop? Oh well, if I haven't noticed it's missing it must not be important"

[GOTH KUSTOMS]

Yup, you drop a part and you're like, "What the heck did I just drop? Oh well, if I haven't noticed it's missing it must not be important"

, just had to laugh at this one, been there more then a few times.....

[Foxer]

I really envy the Australians. When they drop a part, it's conveniently hanging off the ceiling.

Here in Europe, I experience an entirely different phenomenon. Parts leave the workbench floor-wards, but they never arrive there. During their relatively short journey, they are sucked through a gap in the space-time-continuum only to reappear years later ...

Oh man, why did Newton have to invent this gravity thingy? Or was it gravy?

On second thought, I better go check inside the apple for that scale nut!

[Mike Kucaba]

Two things that will help alleviate this.The apron that goes around the neck,drapes across the lap,and fastens to the bench(velcro). I've also seen an ingenious solution to small P.E. A modeler built a "glove box" type of device from plexi-glass, to do the cutting, trimming, of P.E.There was even a magnifier above it !!

[MikeMc]

Working at a bench for years guarantees parts droppage. I learned to listen where it went...yes it can bounce, but a hardwood floor has benefits.Tune in to the sound it makes....I find them between cardboard boxes under my bench...above the floor. Just another skill to learn!!

And if never found...are you sure it was even there??

[aarondupont]

Thanks for bring this up. Lately I've dropped something every evening. Sometimes I find them. Mostly I don't. I tried the apron deal and just ripped it from the bottom of the bench forgetting about it when I stood up. Two nights ago, I lost a shock and mount I just made. So I had to make a new one. I wasted twenty minutes looking for that blasted shock and mount. My floor is concrete with carpet under the bench. I use a flash light shined across the floor to help find lost parts. But now at 60 years old, my eyesite seems to cancel out the benefit of the flash light! So I just continue to feed the "gods of missing parts" and Evergreen and Plastruct. Aaron Dupont

[highway]

Andy, I found this tip helpful after the "Carpet Monster" ate a marker light for my Ford truck project. Go to Walmart and get a dust buster and keep it by your desk. Then if you drop a part and don't want to spend 2 hours on your hands and knees searching for it, just fire up the dust buster and 9 times out of 10 you'll find your part. Just remember to look through the stuff the dust buster picked up BEFORE you empty it!! The one I picked at was a Red Devil rechargable for less than $20.

As a side note, the 1 in 10 part I didn't find was that darn marker light!

[Harry P.]

I tend to work right at the edge of my work surface. Both of these have happened to me more than once:

1: I drop a tiny part. First thing I do is slowly and carefully back my chair away from the work surface and look around on the floor. After all, I don't want to step on the part and break it. OK... I don't see it, so I carefully get on my hands and knees and search the entire floor. Once. Twice. A third time. Hmmm... still don't see it. Where could it have fallen???!!!

Finally I give up and resign myself to the fact that the part is lost forever and I'll have to scratchbuild a replacement. So I get up and sit myself down at my work surface again. And there's the part. I dropped it, but it never got to the floor! I dropped it onto my cutting surface and it was there the whole time!

2: Similar story... but this time the part is actually in the fold of my pants or shirt!

And in a similar vein... I've dropped a part, searched the floor over and over again, given up and actually scratchbuilt a replacement... then several days later when I've dropped another small part I see the original part I dropped days before right there on the floor. I can't explain it. I can only say it's a true story!

[MikeMc]

I tend to work right at the edge of my work surface. Both of these have happened to me more than once:

1: I drop a tiny part. First thing I do is slowly and carefully back my chair away from the work surface and look around on the floor. After all, I don't want to step on the part and break it. OK... I don't see it, so I carefully get on my hands and knees and search the entire floor. Once. Twice. A third time. Hmmm... still don't see it. Where could it have fallen???!!!

Finally I give up and resign myself to the fact that the part is lost forever and I'll have to scratchbuild a replacement. So I get up and sit myself down at my work surface again. And there's the part. I dropped it, but it never got to the floor! I dropped it onto my cutting surface and it was there the whole time!

2: Similar story... but this time the part is actually in the fold of my pants or shirt!

And in a similar vein... I've dropped a part, searched the floor over and over again, given up and actually scratchbuilt a replacement... then several days later when I've dropped another small part I see the original part I dropped days before right there on the floor. I can't explain it. I can only say it's a true story!

Odds are good you've rolled over a couple doing that...I have . So I switched to a swivel chair.. ..I rotate to one side, stand up slowly, then look behind the casters on the chair (bring your bench light down with you!!) I will then get the dustbuster...tape a single ply over the nozzel....it usually will get found...unless its in my clothing....

[gasser59]

Lately, and even earlier today, I grip a small part in the tweezers and while I'm grabbing another part to glue it to, the tweezers compresses and the part goes airborne. PING!! Without having my eyes on it at the time of departure, I have no idea which direction it even went. I don't even bother to look for it most of the time since it could be anywhere. I just resign myself to making a new one which usually turns out better that the first (lost) one.

[SuperStockAndy]

Great suggestions guys....thanks for sharing.

[Junkman]

Years ago, I had a JoHan 1962 Olds F85 kit. 100-percent complete and undstarted. For reasons I don't remember I had the box open and was going to move it from the shelf to the workbench when my dog got underfoot. I stumbled out-of-balance avoid stepping on him, the box was jostled, and I could tell something fell out. A quick inventory showed the hood had gone missing. Hours of looking (it was an empty floor covered in carpeting) turned up nothing. Nor was it found when I had the carpet removed and hardwood floors put in.

The kit still sits hoodless on my to-be-built-one-day shelf, and until that parallel univers gives it up, it's not going anywhere...

Yeah, I was thinking already that everyone only mentions the tiny pieces lost in the wormhole. You are the first who brings up the major components being sucked into the black hole. I once lost the windscreen frame of a '53 AMT 'Vette and it never ever resurfaced.

On a different note, one of those parallel universes exists in one's trouser turn-ups. Model kit parts happily mingle with the Chinese food that mysteriously vanished on it's way from the bowl to the mouth during the hapless attempts to master chopsticks. Or coins. The latter seriously got me into trouble at an airport security check a few years back. God knows where I would be now if it had been an AMT metal axle, aka an offensive weapon. Might well wear an orange suit somewhere in Cuba.

[samdiego]

Bite the bullet, guys. The only absolute method of getting the lost part back is to complete an exact replica. Only then will the Universe spit the original back from the black hole as it is no longer fun to have it if you have one too.

[Skydime]

I really envy the Australians. When they drop a part, it's conveniently hanging off the ceiling.

Here in Europe, I experience an entirely different phenomenon. Parts leave the workbench floor-wards, but they never arrive there. During their relatively short journey, they are sucked through a gap in the space-time-continuum only to reappear years later, long after you finished that expensive kit by buying yet another even more expensive kit just for this one part, that spent all the time in a parallel universe.

Oh man, why did Newton have to invent this gravity thingy? Or was it gravy? Or grafitti?

So, that's what happened to my '49 Merc mirror...Glad to know it will be back at a later date

Edited July 26, 2011 by Skydime

[Guest Johnny]

A friend had a very fat dog that was on a diet. The thing would hang around the table waiting for a crumb to drop and my friend snaking at his bench was no different. Yep you get the idea. He has spent many an hour digging in dog dodo looking for the part he dropped the dog had quickly snapped up and swallowed!

I remember seeing the aprons advertised in SAE magazine years ago. I put an old gold colored bed sheet on the floor in front of the bench. Makes it easier to see the dropped pat than the brown shag carpet does!

[Chuck Most]

I never drop parts.

No, for some reason, I'll be cutting or trimming something, and for no apparent reason, it will just go flying off the workbench in some random direction. I'll hear it bounce off the ceiling or wall, but I've gotten to the point I don't even go looking for them anymore. My model room has no carpet, only a hardwood floor, but every time I go looking for something that flew off the bench, I come back empty handed. I don't know, can there be a carpet monster in a room with no carpet?

[Tony T]

Dust bunnies...they're the culprit!!

[SuperStockAndy]

I never drop parts.

No, for some reason, I'll be cutting or trimming something, and for no apparent reason, it will just go flying off the workbench in some random direction. I'll hear it bounce off the ceiling or wall, but I've gotten to the point I don't even go looking for them anymore. My model room has no carpet, only a hardwood floor, but every time I go looking for something that flew off the bench, I come back empty handed. I don't know, can there be a carpet monster in a room with no carpet?

Yeah I have that problem when cutting too. And I'm getting ready to quit looking for parts...I'm tired of them falling!

[Chuck Doan]

Usually the distance it falls is proportional to the time I have spent on it. Tweezer flicks are the most maddening.

I haven't gotten around to mounting a light under the bench...yet!