Questionable Trajectory

[Shane]

If anyone knows the current location of the Elgin 900 mainspring arbor that shot silently from my tweezers and into an adjacent wormhole, there maybe a sizeable reward for it's safe return.  I spent over three hours last night looking for it in a small but crowded work space.

If seen, it answers to "LITTLE $#!+".

Shane

[Nucejoe]

I let a strong magnet find it for your.

[Tmuir]

Don't worry you will find it on your bench in either 6 months time, or just after you receive a replacement arbor.

I remember finding a cap jewel on my work table about 3 months after I lost it and had bought another junker watch to get a replacement jewel.

We have all done it too.

[WellAdjusted]

I think I found it under my bench. Perhaps my incabloc spring ended up under yours?

Seriously, a sweeper magnet (kind of like what roofers use for stray nails) can work wonders. Others have done what crime-scene techs do: put a very fine filter over a vacuum tube (think hosiery) and then see what gets caught.

[watchweasol]

Looks like you have had all the good advise except on the hosiery front 1. make sure they are not the wife's best tights  2,  she is not wearing them at the time . 

Try putting out some bait it might get hungry.

[KarlvonKoln]

I use the hosiery-on-Hoover method.  I keep a rare earth magnet in the kitchen as a last resort, but usually my vacuum finds the adventurous part.  Not always...alas.

[Tmuir]

I have been known to get my 1 meter steel ruler from my outside workshop and put rare earth magnets on it every 10cm and then wave it over everything.

I've found more than 1 click spring with that method, once I even found 2 click springs and I was only looking for 1 at the time.

[spectre6000]

I use a magnetic sweeper too, but I wrap mine in masking tape. They have a habit of picking up random stuff on the one hand, and the chrome housing would like to mar the bottoms of furniture legs. Additionally, masking tape comes in colors other than metal which makes finding other metal colored parts easier to see.

My best into-the-ether part story so far is a missing shock spring. Sproinged off, as is their wont, and I spent an entire evening looking for it. My wife got involved. Many swearings. I eventually worked up a bit of a sweat moving furniture or whatever, and took my glasses off to rub my eyes or something. There it was, statically clinging to the lower inside of my left lens the entire time. Talk about being right in front of you the whole time! 

[Shane]

Still haven't found the current prodigal part yet but I am running out of places to look.

One morning, some time ago, I had spent what proved to be a fruitless effort looking for a pallet fork that got away from me just before work.  About lunch time I found it velcroed to the cuff of my shirt sleeve more than fifty miles away and six hours later.  I didn't have tweezers to safely pick it off so I pulled it off with a piece of masking tape and stuck it inside the lid of my lunchbox.  The crazy part is that I had put on and had taken off my jacket twice before that.

Thanks for the sympathy.

Shane

[Michael1962]

I dropped two tablets the other night from a medicine cup when I was going to take them. I found one on the floor. The other I had heard hit the front of the basin in our ensuite. I could not find it and presumed that as I was standing over the basin it had presumably followed gravity and tumbled down the plughole. So I started to get another tablet out of the pack. Annoyingly as I take tablet in twos and I would now be one short by the end of the pack. (Do I have OCD?)

So, according to my wife, I snore. (I don't really. Never.) I have a double sided mouthguard that lives in a container that clips shut. Now it isn't clipped shut because I keep a spatula in the air hole to reform it after I have bitten on it all night.

Somehow, through possibly a cousin of your wormhole @Shane, the tablet had hit the front edge of the sink and somehow bounced across a gap of probably 30cm and went through the gap between the two halves of the container. A gap of maybe 1cm. At the angle the tablet was flying through the air, presumably less than a 1cm gap.  Why did I look in the container? I had nothing to lose and the likelihood was very slim that it was in there. And yet, there it was.

Look in the most unlikely places that you can think of. 

[AshF]

First time working on a Timex, there was still a bit of power left in the mainspring which proceeded to rapidly explode.  After a few hours of collecting bits from around the room I was a wheel short.  Finally found it!

[Michael1962]

What is it in?

[spectre6000]

The remains of a cup of tea with the tea bag in the bottom.

[VWatchie]

I use my wife whenever I've lost a part and I'm devastated. She has the eyes of a hawk and has an eerie ability to find any part no matter how small in minutes. She definitely gets a kick out of it. The record is a cap jewel anti-shock spring for the escape wheel pivot of a Seiko cal. 7S36B. It is smaller than a spec of dust. I think she was sent to me for this very reason. Bless her and I try to treat her really well so that she won't get any second thoughts about me. Couldn't do watches without her!

She has a sister who's single if anyone is interested 

Edited March 13, 2021 by VWatchie

[Michael1962]