Dumbest thing

How about this:

In a recent lot of miscellaneous tools I purchased, was a very nice, expensive, precision Mitutoyo micrometer... that someone had placed vise grips on both the adjusting barrel and the lock ring in order to try to unscrew the lock ring. Needless to say the micrometer head was totally chewed up.

Broke my heart to see that. :(

- Michael

I actually wrote that, but in light of your comment, I'll gladly let Gary take the credit :)

"Rex B" wrote: I actually wrote that (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sorry, Rex. My bad. I'll take this opportunity to add my item to the list of dumb, disgusting things: I have a Bosch and Lomb stereo zoom microscope on which the eyepieces look like they were cleaned with steel wool.

Oh, and another one: I have a chisel on which someone replaced the handle with cheap wood. Of course, it split, so they repaired it with nails.

I saw a shaper at an auction that was spray painted forest green- ways and everything, all encased in thick enamel paint.

Certainly dumb and annoying, but at least it's a reversible problem. In fact, it simply means that an industrious buyer will likely get a better deal because so many other buyer's won't want to be bothered stripping the paint.

What chaps me are the people who really mistreat and abuse fine tools.

- Michael

And on the "abuse fine tools" note...worst one I ever saw was a welder dude going around the shop "borrowing" micrometers...he didn't pay much attention to the whole "asking before using" rule and using them for clamping a weldment! destroyed 8 1" mikes which the shop replaced followed by the replacement of the welder dude.

Mike

I saw a clown doing this in A&P school of all places... he called them 'ratcheting' C-Clamps as I recall...

Erik

We had a fellow from the loading dock "borrow" a gage block off a surface plate in the lab, and use it as a door stop while he unloaded some stuff from his car. He couldn't understand why everyone was so upset over a chunk of steel...

The Davenport's wrote:

Anyone remember Roxatone paint from the late '50s? I once worked in rented office space that had been freshly decorated even the door knob with gray Roxatone. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

I saw something really, really dumb recently, but right now I can't remember what it was.

In the meantime, I think folks here will like this:

Chris

I was looking through some steel scraps, trying to make up a shim pack for my lathe, when I happened to notice the name "Johannson" etched in one of them. (I went back into a different drawer)

Rich

Tim Killian wrote:

Ive got a near new Starett machinists level, in the box, in my curio cabinet. The owners 14yr old son decided to see how much pressure the Hydraulic H Frame press would produce..so put it on end...under the ram.

Ever see a new new Starett machinists level that looks like a banana?

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

SWMBO will likely shut me off for a month if she happens onto this post, but about 30 years ago, a few days after we first met, She invited to her apartment.

She had just wallpapered the kitchen by herself, and instead of removing the wall plates on the light switch and outlets she'd pasted the wallpaper right over them and cut a little hole through the paper for the light switch toggle.

The appliance cord plugs were just pushed through the paper into the outlets. Luckily it wasn't a foil wallpaper

Somehow I kept my big mouth shut, but looking at those plug blades pushed right through the wallpaper got me wondering if maybe she kept her pantyhose on when she.......

Jeff (Wishing a Happy Jewish New Year to all celebrating it next week.)

I did something similar as a practical joke on Sven, the head model shop toolmaker at my first job.

With the encouragement of my buddies, who were watching out of the corners of their eyes, I asked Sven to loan me his one inch mike, then surreptitiously swapped it for a two inch C-clamp as I walked away from him. When I got to where I was working on something in a relay rack I pretended to use his mike to clamp a panel in place making a great show of straining my arm to tighten it down.

Sven practically broke a leg running across the shop screaming at me.

Jeff

The dumbest thing I've done recently is to open one of Cliff's posts and expect some sort of metalworking content........

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Heh. Two wire, or three-wire??

Jim

I have a not too mechanically inclined friend who really shouldn't own a hand drill, but he does... what's worse it it's a reversable kind... I can't tell you how many times I've been around when he pushing like mad and complaining it won't drill a hole... uh yup, he's running in reverse... :-)

I have another old geezer friend who used to be sharp as a tack, but old age and Alzheimer's is taking it's toll... He called me over the other day to ask for some help replacing a circuit breaker, seems his compressor was triping the breaker and he though it was bad... So I wanderd by and lo and behold he's got 150 feet of 18/2 extension cord (all in a plile) hooked to the compressor. I gently point out that the reason the breaker is trippping is because the compressor is stalling when it tries to start if it's got any kind of pressure in the tank, I again gently explain that it's the voltage drop across 150 feet of extension cord at 18 amps that's the real problem... did I mention this was three 50 footers end to end and each plug/socket was hot as hell too... Anyway my old pal get's a "Ahh I see" kinda look on his face, unplugs ONE of the cords, plugs the other two in and the compressor turns over and he's happy as a clam.. totaly ignoring my pleads about get rid of all the cords.. which he didn't need anyway the damn compressor was 2 feet from the wall socket... What's really sad is 10 years ago this guy would have known himself not to even do this..

Dave

Remindes me of when we had our parking lot repaved. About 2 weeks later, the water meter reader came in the office wondering where our meter went....