Shop Gremlin

This little bundle of horror recently arrived in a parts shipment from England and has brought chaos to my efficient and productive studio of kinetic art. e.g. Dismantling the Commando head, the valve keepers, all eight of them, are carefully collected, stored in a sealed bag and saved for reuse. But when I go to reassemble the head there are only seven valve keepers in the bag! Before he came, when I dropped a piece I would just bend down and pick it up but now, the piece bounces once and he rushes out to steal the part, never to be seen again. And it is always some spring or bit that I have only one of in the shop. Oh the horror. Man is he fast, and he loves to take desparately needed special tools out of the tool box and hide them on me. Worse, WORSE! At the end of the day I like to sit back and have a wee drop of scotch while contemplating the next procedure. Last night I finished work and went to pour myself a wee drink and my precious bottle of fifteen year old single malt scotch was empty. EMPTY! He had drunk my whole bottle. Did I mention he knocked out the website so no avatar. I need help, I know the Eight Air Force was tormented by gremlins in WWII, there must be somebody out there with experience. Perhaps I can engage a Druid priest to perform an exorcism?

You need a bell. Gremlins don't like bells, the noise hurts their ears. I'm sure you can find a bell for your shop, and for your Norton be sure to hang one under the frame.

broken link removed

Excellent suggestion, I will give it a try. And how is it that you know this?

This demon has many names over the eons since even before men used tools. I call it THE Grope Monstes. When I was a caver we almost got to see where they sleep, but of course its always dash into a shadow before your light could reveal its face.

Believe it not. It sure cant hurt. Hang it low.

The Legend of the Bell:
Have you noticed that some riders have a small bell hanging off their motorcycle frame or handlebars? Have you wondered what the purpose is? Well, you have come to the right place. That little bell is more than decoration, it serves a very important purpose – it wards off gremlins, also known as evil road spirits.

You see, there are motorcycle gremlins that LOVE to ride, but they are also mischievous little devils and they cause all sorts of problems for you while you are riding. Some say they are responsible for that old lady in the minivan not seeing you and cutting you off in traffic. Or, you may be having trouble shifting smoothly, your battery goes dead, your turn signal suddenly refuses to work, an oil spill appears out of nowhere, you hit a patch of black ice, etc – you get the idea. Those little gremlins look for trouble and try to steer your bike towards it.

Now, once you get a bell on your scoot – it wards off these attacks from the little gremlins, not allowing any more to get onto your bike. If you already have some gremlins riding with you, they will get trapped in the hollow of the bell, and the constant ringing will drive them insane – causing them to lose their grip and fall to the roadway.

Do you have the protection of a gremlin bell? If you buy a gremlin bell of your own, the power works. If you receive the gremlin bell as a gift – the powerful magic of the bell is doubled. Do you have a friend who does not have a gremlin bell yet? Why not be the person to give them one, they'll thank you! The bell, and a good preventive maintenance program by the bike's owner, will help eliminate the gremlins.

oh yeah, good device, didn't have one on SV when goats struck, wonder what a bell off sacrificed goat is worth to tame the evil spirits rattling apart and mis guiding road hazards in your path.

In watchmaking, it's called launching a part; you grab a small part with small tweezers and kapow!, like squeezing an edamame pod, it files away never to be seen again!

When I was assembling my AR I actually put the parts in a plastic bag and assembled some of the detent springs parts inside the bag.

Beware of magic marker labels on zip lock baggies, such as r and l groups of items as greasy/oil handling can easy smudge to a coin toss, ugh. I go with clear food containers now and drop a note or symbol in with the R/L parts. Still I've opened sealed container that THE Grope Monster got to first. Its an emotional and time testing event don't ya know.

Ah crap my posions have run out and an new crop of mice and rats moving in and about destroyed 3 drawers of part and tools. Beware, at least I am that any long term storage must be done in sealed tins or bugs animals or moisture gets to them too dam soon. Never trust wd/40 but barely over night on sensitive surfaces. Packs rats are well groomed smart critters than have walked almost up to me while doing some Norton tedium in middle of the night, bold as ya please. But when packs of SS washer and small sockets got replaced by twigs and acorns I got out the .45 rat shot and none would show it face or run willy nilly across rafters over head. One night it momma stuck her nose out behind over head rafter quick as a flash but I'd heard it scampering and had put down tool and picked up pistol
and got it fast as any movie western, impressed my myelf no end and missed wires and roof and stored stuff to boot, ahh.

I put 3 of those things in my garage. I was skeptical to say the least. Every autumn when the mice come in the garage/house one gets trapped in the Miata somewhere I can't find and it stinks to high heaven for about 3 weeks. So I got these things on a recommendation and this Spring the birds have not been coming in the garage, can't see the mice/chipmunks, so can't say for sure about them. I did test the gizmos with some software and a mike that will record up to 100KHz and the things do put out a constant buzz at around 40-50KHz. I put one in each garage door opener outlet, right above each car and another in an outlet by the house vac. Here's hoping. It's not going to repel them instantly, but maybe it's enough to make it unfriendly to them. For $25 it's worth a try.

Dave

I"ve tried 3 ultraonics at once in our garage to find our dumb/deaf insects and rodents ignored them and still opened feed bags or shit on good stuff. Poison is my choose to keep up with now. One can't leave a vehicle with hood closed long or rats think it safe to make nest in intakes and chew off wires for entertainment. Must prop hood open a few inches or else. They can get inside via chewing through fire wall opening into vents and glove box too. Also birds tend to build nests over bikes and stuff then dropping begin to pile up. Rat urine on Al does nasty stuff that makes my killer instinct wake up.

For weeks the little electronic eye safety things for my garage door kept moving. Every morning I would have to readjust them or the door wouldn't close & I couldn't figure out why until one day I opened the door and a big mouse fell off it. I realized they were jumping on the eye and knocking it out of line just a bit. They don't seem to get into my car or bike stuff so live & let live for now.

Befriend and accept them. It is amazing how things reappear where you know you just looked. I dropped a key right in the middle of the garage and couldn't find it for 2 days. Yesterday, there it was, right in the middle of the garage floor.

All those bells do is make them laugh. Don't ask me how I know! oooooooooo00000000OOOOOOOO000000000ooooooo

One of the little buggers made of with my parts manual yesterday.

Y'all just need to pull up a chair, draw yourself a nice pint, and read them "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" by Beverly Cleary. Educated mice will move off to the big city...