Spiteful Trajectory

[nevetslab]

One of the downsides of this new shop space is the height of the benches....38", and the floor is concrete. Maybe it's an aging thing with hands' dexterity in handling hardware as you disassemble or reassemble gear. I dunno. Today, it was removing the nuts and washers from a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, so I could drop down the main PCB for both inspection as well as adding the Drive/More Drive Mod to the second stage. Got the first nut/washer off, lifted both off and placed them into the plastic pint-size Sorbet lid that I use in mass for holding parts in process. The second set of nut/washer....the nut lept out from my fingers and hit the concrete floor running. Those particular nuts I don't have many spares, so down to my hands and exposed knees (I wear shorts year-round out here), with flashlight in hand, scanning the floor's surfaces for the elusive nut. Gone. Logic tells you these parts just CAN'T travel THAT far to never be found again. Back down again for a third search, this time looking forward, where these particular 'benches' have a wooden panel that comes within a 1/4" from the floor, which spans the full width of the bench. I saw just past the front opening what appeared to be the edge of that chrome nut. Grabbed my Wiha #2 screwdriver, gave it a quick recharge off the 12" speaker's magnet in the amp, and moved the tip to the bottom lip of that panel where the nut was just beyond. It jumped onto the tip of the screwdriver, and....sure 'nuff....it was the NUT which took a spiteful trajectory on me.

I was just about to update my notes on the amp when 'sgelectric' (Steve) walked in with the gift of one of his vintage Patton High Velocity Fans he had hanging in his garage down in the Mar Vista / Venice Beach area where he lives. He had called me this morning to tell me he was coming up to Glendale, and had this fan he was going to loan me, having read my ramblings in that recent post about my unsuccessful exploits of keeping Patton Fans alive. So, he popped his head into the shop, just as I was about to start typing my notes. Always a pleasure to have your train of though shifted for a while on a hot day. Though nice and cool here in the shop. Now, hopefully I'll have a bit more success evacuating the heat out of the wall-to-wall carpeted apartment, where it's been remaining well over 80 degs F inside when I get home.

[Enzo]

I recall some years back now, Mouser had plain old pot nuts for metric, SO I bought bags of 10 for 9mm, 10,, and 11mm. Of course that more or less insured I would never need a spare, so I still have some in my drawer.

[Randall]

Lordy, I spend a percentage of almost every day on my hands and knees chasing something. And they almost always drop straight down and the under my bench. I'm getting too old for this.

[nevetslab]

I recall some years back now, Mouser had plain old pot nuts for metric, SO I bought bags of 10 for 9mm, 10,, and 11mm. Of course that more or less insured I would never need a spare, so I still have some in my drawer.

I too had stocked up on both the 7mm & 8mm threaded bushing nuts for the pots (and their associated flat washers). This particular nut was the thin 14mm Hex nut used on the older generation Hot Rod Series Input Jacks, Preamp Out/Power Amp Input jacks & FS jacks' hex nut. Studio Sound Electronics charges half a buck for those, if memory serves. And, of course, it's those jacks that have woefully short threaded plastic bushings that strip out with the greatest of ease.

[Enzo]

Oh, Fender jack nuts. Seems to me they fit the same thread as the nuts on full size toggle switches or stomp switches.

I never knew the bushing diameters on the small pots, I just knew the nut size, what nut driver to grab.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Lordy, I spend a percentage of almost every day on my hands and knees chasing something. And they almost always drop straight down and the under my bench. I'm getting too old for this.

Same here. When that happens I just pull out my bin drawer full 'o spares and pick one that fits. The errant nut/bolt/washer/whatever invariably creeps back into view, sometimes directly underfoot, anywhere from a week to a year later.

[52 Bill]

I spent so much time looking for lost screws and nuts, they've added a time code for it.

I replace so many of those plastic Fender jacks, I always have a decent supply of the nuts and washers on hand.

[Enzo]

Every Fender jack came with a tiny baggie with nut and washer. So most times we reuse the old nut. Over time I built up a good supply.

[drewl]

And they used so many different types!

Just used my last two long D shaft pots with the mounting cage.

About ten years ago I ordered a ton of those Marshall plastic pots they started using back in the Valvestate days.

I think I've only used two!

[Chuck H]

It's amazing how dropped things can take a hop and roll off into Murphy's-law-ville. Sometimes you find the thing so far from where you started that you just assume there is evil magic at hand. If there's a crevice or crack that's the first place to look. If if the dropped thing is small enough and the crevice big enough you can assume the thing is gone forever.

Nuts, washers, screws and such are one thing, but guitar picks are another and reach a whole new level of "Where'd it f#@%!ng go?" I once managed to hold visibility on a falling guitar pick and saw it vanish the moment it hit the floor. Like it passed through a membrane into another dimension never to be seen again.

[Mick Bailey]

I once dropped a part in a workshop where I was working and despite an extended search which involved pulling benches away form the wall, I couldn't find it. A colleague came in an said "What's up?" and after explaining the situation he said "It's gone into the "Popeye Zone". When I asked what this was he said the Popeye Zone is where lost things go - like another dimension. All lost items go there, and all found items come from there. It's maintained in equilibrium - when you lose something, someone else finds something and vice-versa. It's called the Popeye Zone because when he was a small child he dropped a Popeye bubble pipe and after searching couldn't find it, but instead found something else that he'd previously lost, in a place where he'd looked before. Many years later though he dropped something and it rolled out of sight and couldn't be found, but whilst looking for it found the bubble pipe in an unrelated place to where it was originally lost. Well, that phrase stuck and spread, and I still use it today.

Cultural note; A bubble pipe may mean something different to Now Kids. When I was a child it was a plastic pipe like your Uncle would smoke that you filled with soapy liquid and blew bubbles out of. Nowadays your Uncle is a woman called Mandy and a bubble pipe is something you suck smoke through to get high. Things have changed.

[Enzo]

I remember bubble pipes.

mens' trousers no longer have cuffs, for the most part. But sometimes my jeans are too long so I turn up a cuff. Oh how many times have I found small parts in those cuffs.

I have also dropped small hardware parts and they fell to who knows where. Look all over the floor...nope. LAter found my part on the speaker magnet, Never made it to the floor.

I had a pair of 2x12 cabs under my bench for bench speakers. CArpeted, with steel corners. The corners lifted it just a hair off the floor - yes, just enough for thin nuts and washers to hide under.

[gui_tarzan]

Model builders have had this issue as long as amp techs have. When you're trying to put a tiny part on and it falls to the floor, it's gone. One of these might help though?

[Chuck H]

Regarding the Popeye Zone...

I once lost a pocket knife and it had been missing for over two years. When we moved from California to Washington we had a service move the bulk of our stuff. The driver was instructed to find a "day labor" guy at the local Home Depot to assist in unloading on the Washington end. But there aren't any day labor guys in front of the Home Depot on Whidbey so "I" had to help unload the truck. A service I paid for someone else to do, but I digress. Anyway...

While unloading my work bench I found the missing pocket knife. It was sitting right on the bench where I thought I'd left it years before. Only now the bench was completely empty, all the stuff on and in it having been loaded into boxes and had taken a bumpy, thousand mile trip. Que spooky music.

[nevetslab]

Model builders have had this issue as long as amp techs have. When you're trying to put a tiny part on and it falls to the floor, it's gone. One of these might help though?

I've thought about something like that, or attaching a gutter just below the bench to catch the parts that only escape as far as over the edge of the bench.