The tiny parts that slip from your fingers or tweezers, or go flying away unexpectedly from the sprue cutter? They just disappear!
I am building an old kit, Silver Streak "Golden Spike" series mechanical reefer. A plastic kit, not one of the Silver Streak wood and metal kits. There was a bit of a craze for plastic kits with separately applied parts back then, as a rebellion against the shake the box kits -- first the Kurtz Kraft (later Cannonball Car Shops) PS-1 boxcar, then the Golden Spike mechanical reefers. It took another decade or more before other manufacturers did this kind of kit in plastic. It is somewhat arbitrary which details are cast in place or separately applied, and some of the separately applied ones are very tiny indeed.
So I am just on step 3 of the kit instructions and have already lost a plug door handle and a fuel tank cap. They are somewhere on the floor (old fashioned linoleum, tan with what looks like brown and white painted streaks -- the worst possible background for finding stuff). Somewhere down on that same floor there also are dozens of Kadee coupler springs, some Durango Press gondola stake pockets, screws to the valve gear of a brass locomotive or two, jewels to lost wax brass castings of marker lights, metal grab irons, lift rings, air hoses, coupler cut levers. You name it, it's down there somewhere.
So .... How come I never find ANY of it? I cast a strong light on the floor looking for tiny shadows. Nyet. I carefully sweep with a fine broom (and check the broom thoroughly). Nyet. Today I was on my hands and knees wearing an optivisor with a flashlight. Nyet. Heck I'd feel victorious if I ended up crushing the darn things with my shoes. But nyet.
True I am fighting a losing battle with glaucoma (which I why I finally figured it was now or never on this Silver Streak kit) but even so, I have always had about a 0% success rate with any of this stuff. I could open a reasonably well stocked hobby shop with just the stuff on my floor if I could only find it.
OK, so ... where do these things go? To heaven (or the other place)? Have I accidentally been modeling with my mouth open and swallowed them? Do spiders rush out and grab them and take them back into the dark corners?
I am too many decades removed from college but I seem to recall some wise man at a lecture pit saying that matter cannot be destroyed. I am here to say I believe this is incorrect, provided it is part of a model railroad kit.
No point to this other than generic venting.
Now ... on to step 4. Wish me luck.
Dave Nelson
Sorry Dave, I laughed out loud. But I hear you. My floor is a beige carpet. I have done all those things you mention trying to find that part that bounced off the bench and then bounced off myself and then hit the floor and who knows how many times it bounced of the floor. And if it had glue on it maybe it didn't even make it to the floor. Most of the time I am able to find the parts but sometimes I find myself searching my scraps to manufacture the part that has been taken by the power of the floor. My eyes are not what they used to be and I have thought about moving up to HO scale. But from what you said you have more difficulty than I do. I wish you well.
Modeling a railroad hypothetically set in time.
I surely don't find everything on my grey carpet, but I do find a lot.
I have abandoned the idea that you can predict a bounce. Nope. Doesn't happen. It's OK to look where you think it bounced to, but it will never be there.
What works for me is to let the part be found.
Give it a try, Luke.
Ed
Why would you expect small parts to be findable if they are launched into the nether world when it is a scientific fact that dryers cause larger items (every 3rd sock on average) to completely disappear only to later emerge as lids to Tupperware containers of a size you don’t own.
Andre
Years ago, I had a Star Wars action figure on my desk. He fell off once and this little antenna on his helmet came off. I looked high and low for it, but it went off to the same land as the tiny screw I dropped the other night when I was replacing a coupler.
Three years later, I'm moving out of that apartment. I was making the last pass to make sure I hadn't left anything behind, and across the room, a good 15 feet away, I see a tiny little black thing laying on the floor. It was that antenna, all 5/8ths of an inch of it. How...how....it never got sucked up in a vaccuum or swept up or, geez, anything?
Not too long ago somebody suggested putting your sprue into a Ziplock bag before cutting anything off. The theory was that if the part did fly off it would be trapped by the bag. I never tried it.
Every time my wife tells me to let the cleaning ladies into my workshop I cringe at the thought that the lost parts will now never be recovered.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Hey, Dave, welcome to the club! I was in HO from about 1956 to 1993, with time out for O scale in the '60s. I went back into O in '93 because it's big enough to SEE! However, being bigger, any detail that should be there but isn't sticks out like a sore thumb--at lease to me. Since there's not a chance in a million that I'll ever be in a position to build another layout, I decided to build turn of the (20th) century equipment. My second project was a quartet of 34' boxcars, two from prototype drawings in MR and two of them freelanced--but with authentic detailing. About three years ago I had to quit for a while, since my eyesight took a turn for the worse--after losing three air brake retainer valves to patterned "tile" floor covering and hundreds of odd places they could go to hide.
Well, as I told a friend this afternoon, when he was complaining about Old Age, it's better than the alternative--plus, they shoot horses, don't they? P.S. I now have a new and improved magnifying bench lamp and reading glasses, and I'm working on a long project for display. Never say die!
Deano
The worst part about it is that the little missing part(s) is still there...laughing at you, silently taunting you, watching your every move.
I do my construction work in two areas, one is at the kitchen table which sits on an area rug over a hardwood floor. I have spent hours over time on my hands and knees searching and eventually finding. The other area is my bare concrete basement floor where lost items should be easy to find...but they are not. Concrete floors simply provide a better bouncing surface.
A few months ago, I had reason to replace the springs that I had previously removed in a few Peco turnouts. I set up a card table and chair in the foyer with its hardwood floor, so that I could find any lost springs. Fortunately, that proved unnecessary.
I am still haunted 10 years later by a missing fisherman who was last seen standing on an embankment under a bridge. Granted, I did not drop this part, but he did go missing, never to be found. This past summer, as I demolished my old layout, I was convinced that he would be found, but no luck. I do have a feline of interest, but she ain't talkin'.
Rich
Alton Junction
i've seen experienced modelers do work with fine parts in a box.
dknelsonOK, so ... where do these things go?
i lost a small spring. searched for it on the floor. eventually found it in the garbage can
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Surprisingly, I seem to find most of them - shocker.
But I suspect the rest go into the time vortex that is generated by our dryers and where some of our socks go never to be seen again to ensure we always have some mismatches.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
gregc i've seen experienced modelers do work with fine parts in a box. dknelson OK, so ... where do these things go? i lost a small spring. searched for it on the floor. eventually found it in the garbage can
dknelson OK, so ... where do these things go?
The tile in my workshop is mottled gray... the worst.
.
Everything that hits the floor disappears. When I sweep the floor looking for a part that dropped, I only find parts from previous projects I gave up looking for.
It is like there is a revolving doorway to this nether-world.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Tiny parts defy the law of gravity and end up several feet from where they are suppose to land. I will never figure that out.
So..
With flashlight in hand down on all fours I go looking for a tiny part that is hiding several feet away!
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
If the usual two-or-three minute hands and knees search with a good flashlight doesn't get results I grab one of the cordless vacuums I have on hand.
These have a handy pull-out crevice nozzle that gets under and around tight areas.
Vacuum_DC by Edmund, on Flickr
This model has a clear-bodied dust chamber and it is easy to empty into a tray where I can sort through the fur-balls and dead bugs to hopefully find the grab iron or 0-80 screw I just dropped.
Generally, I'm successful. Murphy wins one every now-and-again.
Good Luck, Ed
Check your pants cuff and pockets. I have had parts take that weird bounce and wiind up in both.
Paul D
N scale Washita and Santa Fe RailroadSouthern Oklahoma circa late 70's
PED Check your pants cuff and pockets. I have had parts take that weird bounce and wiind up in both.
Inside my shoe, too!
riogrande5761 Surprisingly, I seem to find most of them - shocker. But I suspect the rest go into the time vortex that is generated by our dryers and where some of our socks go never to be seen again to ensure we always have some mismatches.
My theory is that they never make it to the dryer in the first place. I wear a lot of patterned socks and they're not particularly expensive but cost enough to be annoying if one goes missing. I started only putting them into the washer if both socks were confirmed to have gone in together. Singles wait for their mate is located.
I find the missing ones all over the place. Under the bed, fell into a drawer, stuffed in a pant leg you name it. Since implementing this is process I haven't lost a man.
PEDCheck your pants cuff and pockets. I have had parts take that weird bounce and wiind up in both.
Micromark has an apron type thing to help with that problem. I have a dedicated vacuum just for this reason. Have yet to actually find a part in it
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
Come on guys we have missed the obvious explanation. As they fall these small parts come close to the speed of light. As they do they warp time and reappear at a later date pretty simple...... As for socks everybody knows the dryer grinds them up into lint.......
Reality is that your floor is dirty. Other explanations are more fun tho.
Too funn about this discussion topic and hearing everyone's horror stories. Mine include losing them on light brown carpet on the 1st layout and now on gray concrete. I just can't win!
Now that you mention it, perhaps put down some cardboard or material that is a different color to the pieces? You always could do what I do with my kids and Legos: work on the floor!
I too am convinced that objects gain legs. Working on a clean bench helps avoid losing parts. Some of them are small so I nip them into a plastic container. Perfect ones are any small leftover containers or just get a cheap tupaware set.
"eventually found it in the garbage can"
"I too am convinced that objects gain legs"
"as they fall these small parts come close to the speed of light"
"they warp time"
"can end up in clothing among other places"
"inside my shoe"
"defy the law of gravity"
So, what we are saying is that dropped small parts morph into little space creatures with arms, legs, and opposable thumbs (so they can climb into trash cans on minature ladders to hide because they don't like workbench litter), can time travel at the speed of light through worm holes, and are perverts with a foot fetish.
Does that about cover it?
Perhaps you should do what they did in Honey I Shrunk the Kids and suspend yourself from the ceiling to look for the lost parts.
Joe Staten Island West
I model HO scale, and tiny parts have a habit of traveling amazing distances and ending up in the most bizarre and unlikely places. One time I was working on a tender truck and had a spring that goes on the truck mount on the tender shoot off like a rocket. I did the standard hands and knees search, (multiple times by the way) on the carpet with a flashlight for hours, but could not find it. I had to get a new spring for it, then about two or three months later I was giving another locomotive an overhaul, and lo and behold, I found the spring in the coal bunker on that engine's tender. And that locomotive was parked a good 5 feet or so in the opposite direction of where I thought the spring flew. As for the subject of clothes dryers, I am convinced that they generate small sock sized wormholes when running. Or maybe aliens beam them out along with the tiny parts.
Attn Dave Nelson--
My father's local doctors in north central PA wanted him to just shut up and go blind from the glaucoma, after insertion of a drain tube failed.
We went to see Dr. Harry Quigley, the foremost glaucoma surgeon in the nation, at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. They did trabeculectomy (trap door) procedures on my dad to save his sight.
My father asked Dr. Quigley what they were doing to help his son so that someday my eyes don't get as bad as his. His reply was that they have four floors of the Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore, above the basement glaucoma clinic, working on solutions.
My father had other eye issues, also, that did rob him of his sight at the end, at 84.5, and it was not the eye pressure.
If I were you, I would get a second opinion from doctors outside your area. Hopkins is an absolutely amazing place...and worth the trip.
Respectfully submitted--
John Mock
To find the parts on the floor, if it's something important to me, I like to lay down on the floor with a good light, and I typically ask God to help me find it. He answers.
I have a method that works almost 100% of the time----walk barefoot, at 0200 hrs. through the space, to get a drink of water. Works almost everytime.
herrinchoker
Shoot, guys, I can have a tarnished Kadee knuckle spring fling off a pair-o-tweezers and ricochet around the room for 17 seconds, land 15 feet away in a crack on my copper-ish colored laminate floor behind a table leg, and I'll find it in a quick glance without really trying. No problem! Why? Because it knows I have a whole envelope with far more spares in it than I could ever use in a lifetime.
BUT! I can drop that all-important one-off piece, or tool, up to the size of an eight inch crescent wrench, hear it bounce like said crescent wrench, and sometimes even see and hear the direction it went... Uh-huh! If it's the only one I have or can get, then naturally, it will have been abducted by that which I call Accelerated Lateral Gravity Syndrome. Scientifically proven. After it hits the floor, it goes faster than it was when it made impact with the floor and continues to accelerate laterally until it burroughs itself into a that dark (100,000 candlepower flashlight notwithstanding) mysterious place that knows exactly when you have acquired a replacement before giving it up. IF it gives it up. Sometimes it will give it up, and even do so immediately thereafter, but only if you have no use for a spare.
I go through every speck of debris when I empty the little shop vac. And do usually find pieces-- that I didn't know were missing! Dan
This happened again to me just yesterday.
The little piece pictured below just disappeared. After a three hour search I found it in an Evergreen bag with the 0.010" by 0.100" styrene strips.
How did it get in there?
I'm surprised there hasn;t been a Dr. Who episode on this, where the Doctor winds up in an odd dimensal void which is filled with vast numbers of mismatched socks and little tiny detail parts - it all falls through the same interdimensional roft and all those little parts that fall to the floor - the reason you can't find them is because they never actually reached the floor. Somewhere between the bench top and the floor, they transited this interdimensional rift and are now safely held, beyond reach, along with all those socks that go missing from the dryer. The exact physics of the missing parts has not been determined, but perhaps it is because they are so small they are easily tumbled as they fall, generating the same sort of vortex that occurs in the clothes dryer that causes the socks to enter the void.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.