The Fourth Dimension

[Harold Lee]

It was not until I started machining in my shop that I realized that there is a fourth dimension. We all know from our first drawings that with projections and isometrics that we can simulate the third dimension. Today with the CAD programs we are very comfortable in working with 3D models where we can view, check fits, run and rotate our projects before they have ever been committed to a machine for making a part.
But it is not until after we start to make one that we can come in contact with the fourth dimension. Last night for the um teenth time I was making a teeny weenie part when all of a sudden the part flew out of the chuck and entered the fourth dimension. Why do I know? Because I looked everywhere in the three dimensional world and it was no where to be found. I have had something in my hand and poof ??? it enters the fourth dimension. The reason I know is it no longer exists in this time space continuum. I have spent two hours looking for a part that I only took 10 minutes to make.
I have to say I spent a lot of time in denial about this rather saying. "Well the swarf got another one". RIGHT!!! Swarf!!! As if it is some conscious, breathing, living thing.

Let me tell you, I have discovered another dimension where all of those parts go that get parted off, dropped, flung, and discarded. They go to another dimension; The Fourth Dimension!!! If only travel to this dimension were possible. I know I would find all of my errant parts and probably all of yours as well. Would take a long time sorting through all of the stuff I am sure I would find there..

If this travel ever becomes possible imagine how much quicker we could make our projects without having to spend the rest of the day looking, and hoping, and then in despair remaking our parts... When I return from there I'll post a list with pictures and perhaps you can reclaim some of yours as well....

 

[tel]

Well if you find a way in to it let me know - 'cos I have about 7 tons of stuff residing there.

 

[Ken I]

Someone resides in that fourth dimension with a very wierd sense of humour.

The parts are sometimes ejected back into our spacetime continuum to reappear at a position - glaringly obvious - that we had searched several times before.

I say wierd sense of humour because it often reappears just after you made its replacement.

There is also a corrolory - sometimes an additional part is injected just to confuse the hell out of you.

I made 12 parts the other day - but for some reason I have two left over that I know for a fact I did not make !

Maybe they're Tel's

Ken

 

[tel]

Maybe they're Tel's

That wouldn't surprise me at all - my section must be well and truly overflowing.

 

[fcheslop]

And Iv been blaming elves all these years can you see if theres a load of scribers and various boiler fittings whilst you're in the fourth dimension for me Harold :big:
Just spent an hour looking for a boiler bush that only took ten minutes to make that elf again

 

[Noitoen]

If you look under the bench, just out of reach, you will find the black hole where the parts usually go to.

 

[rake60]

I have had my share of disappearing small parts.

Building the Poppin engine was one occasion.

My first brass valve rod bushing was parted of and lost forever.
Well, almost lost forever, until my wife asked me where the scratches in the kitchen
floor tile were coming from.

A close examination of my shoe sole located the bushing.
It was slightly smashed and 95% embedded.
Just enough sticking out to cause me some tile replacement time.
:toilet:

Rick

 

[Captain Jerry]

The shop is a scary place. There is a moving event horizon that sweeps over my bench and swallow tools and parts. It used to get just the very small parts but lately the disappearing parts are getting bigger. Today it got a two pound hammer. I told my wife, if I don't come home from the shop someday, don't come looking for me.

Jerry

 

[Harold Lee]

If you look under the bench, just out of reach, you will find the black hole where the parts usually go to.

After reading all of the posts of people with similar experiences I now think it is more of a wormhole in space and not a black hole. A black hole has a single entry point and a wormhole is a portal to everywhere. What I now see is this wormhole exists in Australia, South Africa, England, Portugal, Illinois USA, Florida USA and most importantly, under Rick's shoe!

As Jerry said, "it is a scary place" but it sounds like we all have a portal into it... If you see me over there say hello ;D Now excuse me while I go find that pesky pipe wrench...

 

[1Kenny]

I once looked for hours trying to find a little nut that slipped out of my hand. That night after going around town doing shopping, coming back home I took my shoes off an there it was, under one of my shoe strings.

Kenny

 

[Clockguy]

A forth dimension!! I never though of that. In my shop we are sure that gremlins rushed out and grabbed what ever hits the floor. This has been going on so long we don't even bother to look any more. If it hits the floor, it's gone. They have a wicked sense of humor though as they will occasionally bring something back during the night. Next morning, there it is on the bench. Weird!! Cheers, JL

 

[dvbydt]

Yes, I too have suffered from the Taker, but unlike you lazy lot, I decided to do something about him. I would beard him in his den and finally sort him out. After thinking about the problem , I came up with a quadridimensional program for my PC. This was based on the use of the twin speakers to create a uniform quantumtransference field interface.
Just before I pressed return to load and run it, I realised that I needed a way back, so I used my moble phone to program an interupt so that I would be able to get home. Very clever eh?

As with most of my experiments, I have high hopes that it was going to work, I texted Run then send.










Well, I just got back, sorry didn't bring back any of your stuff, it was a great disappointment, nothing but huge piles of Meccano nuts and bolts, ballpoint pens, rollerballs and pencils, heaps of paper clips and floorspace. I don't know who loses all that floorspace but it has got to stop, because there is so much now that the Taker says that He has great difficulty finding things to return to us.

He says its not his fault that stuff keeps getting transferred out there, he has a gang of extra dimensional civil servants who scan everything that we do and keep loading him up with more overiding priority targets.They don't care about us slaves, we're are only there to generate interesting stuff for them to look at to see if it's worth adding to their transparent heap of restructured quantitive easing etc. that we were never meant to understand anyway.

So, nothing really gained from this exercise, 'cept, if you've got floor space you can see where you dropped something and the Taker dosen't need any more floorspace.

Ian

 

[tel]

There is hope, however - the infallible method of getting the 4th dimension to spit yous stuff (or a lot of it) back is to buy, make or steal a replacement item!

 

[hopeless]

worked for me Tel. I lost my makita 4" sidegrinder and spent 2 weeks looking for it. Gave up and bought a cheaper GMC to help out. Got back home to the workshop and there it was ......on the bench!!! Definately agree with the 4th dimension theory
Pete

 

[MachineTom]

I do not believe there is a fourth dimension which swallows those parts. The proof is that I know where exactly I placed a tool, and a couple minutes latter it was gone, looked all around and it was not in the shop. My Dad took it and hide it under his shirt, although he passed away 6 years ago, he still plays that trick on me, and sure enough the next day that tool was back, right where I left it.
He does the same things to my brother in FL, he does get around. Maybe you guys have seen him short guy, gray hair, always smiling, with a sparkle in his eyes.

 

[ShopShoe]

Lost It. Made a new one but did it wrong. Found the first one before the project was done: threw it out because I thought it was someone else's random junk. Lost the second one. Made a third one. Found the first one again because the round filing device rejected it. Put the project together. Found the second one. Decided to leave the shop for the day. Where's the house key?

--ShopShoe

 

[dsquire]

Harold

Thanks for starting this thread. One of the most informative thread's I've read in a while. :bow:

Cheers

Don

 

[Troutsqueezer]

I made an important discovery recently and I do thank Einstein for this revelation. I took a cue from him to think outside the box after several important small parts fell from the workbench recently. After an hour of crawling around on the dirty shop floor, shining a flashlight this way and that, running a magnet on a stick coming up empty, I began to think...what if I were riding on that little metal part? How would the world look from a falling set screw? I heard the screw hit the floor, but did it? Possibly, from the floor's point of view the set screw never reached the floor at all. I began to look at the problem in a new light. There must be a place, or dimension if you will, that the set screw popped into. A quantum foam of some sort. At that relative place in time, my eyes gazed upward from the floor. Lo and behold, there between the floor and the benchtop was a shelf, out of sight, out of mind. As sure as e=mc squared, there were all my missing parts from the past 8 months.

 

[Ken I]

Has anyone seen my Ryobi skill saw ?

Ken

 

[alien0ne]

No, but my micrometer, which disappeared a couple of years ago, materialized behind the fish tank I moved yesterday!!