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How to find parts dropped on carpet?


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Hello all,

In my experience any time a part is dropped onto the carpet, the chance of retrieval is dismal. It does not matter if the part is dropped from the table or 2 feet of the ground, they simply disappeared and reappeared when the plane is already built or replacement parts have been bought. This morning I accidentally dropped the front wheel of my WIP 1/48 A7  just two feet away of the carpet and the thing just varnished in thin air. I have grey carpet and with the wheel having white and black color, it should be an easy find. But I spent over 2 hours on my knees turning the whole room over and the darn thing just gone like magic ! I saw it hit the carpet then gone in a second. I removed, overturn the tables, chair and vacuumed the entire room to no avail. In my experience if a part is dropped onto the carpet I have 1% chance of getting it back. I have lost large items like 1/48 ejection seat, landing struts, canopy if they hit the carpet. So what is the way to get these back? Any techniques? BTW I have a spare A7 so other than 1 hour, the plane is near completion. Dai 

Edited by dai phan
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One way to help prevent parts getting lost when dropped is to use an apron with the end attached to your table, it will catch parts that fall.

 

For parts that do fall, get the vacuum, put a pair of pantyhose or a sock over the attachment tube and vacuum the floor, the part will get stuck to the pantyhose/sock and not get sucked up.

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29 minutes ago, GW8345 said:

One way to help prevent parts getting lost when dropped is to use an apron with the end attached to your table, it will catch parts that fall.

 

For parts that do fall, get the vacuum, put a pair of pantyhose or a sock over the attachment tube and vacuum the floor, the part will get stuck to the pantyhose/sock and not get sucked up.

 

:worship::worship: never thought of the panty hose your a wise man but my floor is laminate so sometimes they vault anywhere.

 

Don

 

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26 minutes ago, GW8345 said:

For parts that do fall, get the vacuum, put a pair of pantyhose or a sock over the attachment tube and vacuum the floor, the part will get stuck to the pantyhose/sock and not get sucked up.

 

No way am I risking a run in my best pair of pantyhose !!!!  lol

 

My house is all hardwood floors and I still lose parts.  I lost a PE part the other day and wasted over an hour looking for it.  I blame aliens....

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It's because of a BLACK HOLE the only explanation I wrote a thesis on this and got my PHD  I am also working on a theory that they grew legs and ran away hoping for a Nobel Prize in Physiology for that one take that Darwin

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That remains one of the biggest mysteries and simply defies explanation.  I normally turn all lights off and hold a flashlight flat on the floor so even tiny stuff will throw long shadows.  I do a section at a time and have found a couple dropped parts that way.    The vacuum trick seems like a good idea, though -- I'll have to give that a try next time.

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12 hours ago, crackerjazz said:

That remains one of the biggest mysteries and simply defies explanation.  I normally turn all lights off and hold a flashlight flat on the floor so even tiny stuff will throw long shadows.  I do a section at a time and have found a couple dropped parts that way.    The vacuum trick seems like a good idea, though -- I'll have to give that a try next time.

I have tried that as well. I have lost things as big as a 1/48 seat and it is dropped just 3 feet of the carpet. Dai

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12 hours ago, crackerjazz said:

That remains one of the biggest mysteries and simply defies explanation.  I normally turn all lights off and hold a flashlight flat on the floor so even tiny stuff will throw long shadows.  I do a section at a time and have found a couple dropped parts that way.    The vacuum trick seems like a good idea, though -- I'll have to give that a try next time.

This vanishing act has the same principle as disappearing coin magic trick. I tried again for another hour w/o results yesterday! Dai 

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once found a missing vacuform canopy in some package wrapping I had stored inside "that room" and it's not something you can miss so easily, I'm still wondering how in the F ended there

 

Luigi

 

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16 hours ago, crackerjazz said:

I normally turn all lights off and hold a flashlight flat on the floor so even tiny stuff will throw long shadows.

 

I dropped my flashlight and now I can't find it either.   :rofl:

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20 hours ago, habu2 said:

 

No way am I risking a run in my best pair of pantyhose !!!!  lol

 

My house is all hardwood floors and I still lose parts.  I lost a PE part the other day and wasted over an hour looking for it.  I blame aliens....

Hmmm...

 

 

AlienFrogModeller

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18 hours ago, John Tapsell said:

The best way to find the missing part is to make a replacement - you can guarantee the missing part turns up immediately afterwards...

I've got to agree with John, either scratch build a replacement part taking several hours or scrabble through your spares box(es) until you find a wheel that is nearly right. Then paint and fix the replacement part and within a short time the missing part will appear.

 

21 hours ago, habu2 said:

No way am I risking a run in my best pair of pantyhose !!!!

You'll find it doesn't work too well with fishnets 🙂

 

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Funny this should come up. Lost a part last week. I was even being careful but too much pressure on the tweezers I guess. I was making wire pull handles for an ejection seat and they went poof. Looked for a few minutes and then said screw it. Remade it. I have commercial carpet in my model room for exactly this reason and still lost it.

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On 5/21/2020 at 12:39 PM, habu2 said:

  I blame aliens....

 

3 hours ago, AlienFrogModeller said:

Hmmm...

 

 

AlienFrogModeller


These are miniature aliens - scaliens - looking for parts to repair their flying saucer.........

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What amazes me is on the rare occasion you find it, it will be somewhere that seems like all laws of physics were broken for it to be where you found it. Round/spherical things NEVER roll away like you'd think. They end up .2 mm away from where it fell and you still didn't see it. And flat sheet objects will "roll" 50 feet into the back hallway behind the stack of picture frames that's been leaning on the wall for 10 years. And ceramic kitchen tile still falls under the same species of the carpet monster.

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30 minutes ago, niart17 said:

What amazes me is on the rare occasion you find it, it will be somewhere that seems like all laws of physics were broken for it to be where you found it. Round/spherical things NEVER roll away like you'd think. They end up .2 mm away from where it fell and you still didn't see it. And flat sheet objects will "roll" 50 feet into the back hallway behind the stack of picture frames that's been leaning on the wall for 10 years. And ceramic kitchen tile still falls under the same species of the carpet monster.

This is how magic works to make the thing physically impossible. I saw the wheel fell right into the carpet but the gone out site within .1 seconds. Dai 

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During times of intense concentration while working on a model, one can slip into altered states of consciousness, similar to those noted in some Indian holy men and Zen Masters. These altered states allow one to suspend certain physical laws causing one to become out of phase with normal reality. If, when you drop a part, you are in one of the states, the part you were holding is also be out of phase and may "re-phase" almost anywhere. This makes most parts virtually impossible to find. Sometimes as you crawl on the floor, flashlight in hand, mind empty of all thought except the image of the part, you will again slip into this altered state of consciousness and enter the "out of phase" state, allowing you to suddenly find the part in an spot you know you looked at a dozen times before. Or be drawn to a part of the room or house nowhere near your work area, only to find the part sitting there in plain site.

 

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

 

Now, I'm going to light some incense, get out my magic crystals and divining rods and get to work looking for that tiny PE part I lost in the carpet under my desk a year ago. I will start in the kitchen. One must allow for dimensional drift. Unless, of course, someone has a phase discriminator I can borrow and hook up to my smart phone? :whistle:

 

Edited by Mstor
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