Also: always take the time to return tools to their proper places. I know this. I don't always do so. I should.
About a month ago, I needed my smallest two standard braces, those offset-cranked tools that drive a spiral auger bit through wood. I own a chairmaker's brace with a six-inch sweep, meaning the handle is three inches offset from the axis of the bit, and a newer brace with a twelve-inch sweep (among others). I couldn't find either one; there are hooks for the larger braces* and the chairmaker's brace lives in the top compartment of a wooden toolbox, but the braces weren't there. I had vague memories of having used them in a project. Bookshelves, maybe? But they weren't anywhere near the most recent set of bookshelves. There was a chance they'd been left in the garage or lost.
Clearing away clutter so the plumbers would have plenty of room to work, I opened up what I thought was an empty cardboard box. Inside, both braces and two large auger bits, the latter wrapped in a clean rag. The big bits jogged my memory: when I replaced the sink faucet, I had drilled a hole in the floor of the cabinet, so I could poke a boresight camera through and see if there was anything unexpected going on with the pipes in the inaccessible space inside the cabinet base. (There wasn't, and a sturdy cork plugged the opening until next time.) I had carefully packed up the tools in a handy box, carried them to the basement...and set the box on a stack of other boxes until I'd had a look in the base and finished the plumbing. They could always be put away later, right?
"Later" didn't arrive. The kitchen sink job was was in June and July of 2021, around the same time I had cataract surgery. With plenty of distractions, I never went back to put the tools away and forgot where I had left them. It's a lesson I keep relearning: put tools back in their proper place and you'll be able to find them the next time you need them. Consider it the general case of which the Field Notes notebook company motto is a subset: "I'm not writing it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now." "Later" is never. Do it now.
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* I've got another 12-inch sweep brace with an unusual chuck, a fourteen-inch sweep brace, a whimble brace, a very small 90-degree brace that is little more than a chuck, a ball-bearing pad and a lever handle, and a much larger 90-degree brace with a heavy frame and a gear drive. Each one has its use -- but I don't kid myself, it's as much a collection as it is a set of working tools. And it's not even every size -- there are eight- and ten-inch sweep versions, the latter apparently standard in Bell System installer's tools.
Update
6 months ago
6 comments:
Usually, I'm writing it down in the middle of the night so that the subject will come to mind the next morning. Sometimes (such as this morning), that actually works. I am happy to see that a talented person like you shares a fault of my own: not returning tools (or other stuff) to their appointed positions.
You come up with the darndest tools. I think that I am lucky to own just one, straight-on, brace. You put the rest of us to shame.
If you know where my ball end metric Allen wrenches are.....
Simple trick: put your cellphone on your bedside table. When you get a genius idea in bed, just send yourself an email reminder (to your desktop computer or other place you're sure to visit).
Presto: Your reminder is at the top of your inbox next morning.
My late FIL's bit brace and appropriate bit were perfectly suited to make a hole in a window frame that was just the right size for a PL-259. The quiet rotation of the brace and the slow progress of the razor-sharp bit through wood was surprisingly sensual. Made me glad I couldn't use an electric drill.
"A place for everything and everything in its place'' was the rule in my late father's shop. If you can't find it, you don't have it.
They're right where you left them. Unless they're not.
Mine are right where I left them in storage...somewhere.
Sigh.
I used to leave voice mails on my work phone from my bedside phone, but at age 87 I find it sufficient to scribble a note. (Who knows where my phone is?)
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