Hi all

The carpet monster givith, and the carpet monster take it away. Yesterday while working on a M-24 chaffee, a piece decided to go airborne, and you guessed it that evil beast that lives in the carpet reached up and grabbed it. I spent the next half hour on my knee with a light,and could not find it.
What I did find was the muffler to a BMW with side car that the beast grabbed over two wks ago. I'll renew search efforts later today.
While down on my knees I had a idea that I thought I would share. I'm going to place a white rug under my desk. nothing fancy, just a plain old throw rug. The reason for this is to keep the beast at bay, and make parts easier to find. Has anyone done anything similar or anything else to solve the problem of the carpet monster.

Wolfsix

Once, after losing a tiny component to the fuzzy beast and subsequently spending a half-hour on hands and kness hopelessly searching for the wayward piece I got smart and installed a brand-new bag in the vacuum cleaner - recovered the thing in a very few minutes.

Cody

hehe, i know where you're coming from Wolfsix I sometimes have this problem.What I have here is a 500,000 candle power lamp that illuminates things quite nicely, not many escapee kit parts can manage to hide from it.
HTH
Pete

I have a HUGE blue area rug under the table I work on and it has saved me countless times..

When all else fails I pull out the vacuum and place a piece of nylon stocking over the end ...this way I just have to pick it off the nylons and don't have to dig through the bag. Isn't it true that you only find the piece after you have scratch built the replacement part..

Rick

heh when I working with little parts I just wrap some masking tape around my finger so that the little parts stay their during cutting and sanding.

and it seems my parts dont go airborn that much.

Yes and it didn't work!

Interesting thread

Personally I am convinced another "dimension" exists that has not yet been discovered. This dimension holds all model parts subjected to "tweaser launch" (never to be seen again), missing socks from clothes dryers, and misplaced car keys.

Seriously, I have had some good luck locating missing parts by holding the beam from a very bright flash light parallel with the top of the carpet fibres. Lay down on the carpet with your eye close to the top of the fibres--- the angle of the light, and your eyes will pick up a lot of detail--including the dust bunnies you've missed since the last cleaning :-)

You can also try lightly sweeping your hand back and forth across the carpet and see if you can "feel" the part also.

Good luck --- but I'm still holding to my "other dimension" theory

STeve

The first thing I did to fix this problem was I built a desk and mounted it to the wall with a backsplash and sealed the bottom of the backsplash to the desktop with caulk. This keeps them from flying off in two directions. On the floor I have hardwood now, thanks to my wife's insistance and it was easy to seal the the hardwood and the baseboard with a little clear silicone. Now I don't lose nearly as many parts and when I do, they are generally easy to find, except for that bracket from the nashorn that dissappeared into my overflowing parts box. I have no hope of recovery for that.

My theory is rather simple. Since most carpets are made of some type of man-made fiber consisting of basically plastic, the parts that we are unable to find are being hidden by their bretheren for return to their families. Somehow they are transported to the opposite side of the room and stashed in some unknown hiding place, much as the partisans did in during the Second World War with allied fliers! They are eventually returned to their country of origin for reunion with their families. :-)

Why not a scrap piece of linoleum over your carpet when you work?

Sealhead

My wife has been telling me that for years, and reminds me of it everytime she hears me ranting as I do the carpet crawl. I realy need to listen to her.

White Butcher paper.it will make a noise when an errant part lands.And the color will be enough of a contrast...

I have an off-white linoleum floor in my modeling room, and I've still lost pieces to "tweezer launch." In my opinion, the monster cannot be denied. You can only hope he eats something you can replace, scratch build, or cover with mud.

cheers,
Mike

i have to live with my stone flore grey coloured mostly ..u know what this means.....besides the carpet monster there is the stone master also

Hi guys

It is good to know that I'm not alone to battle the beast. Whats bad is that the piece that fell was not even the piece I was cutting off the sprue I was cutting off one piece when I saw the other piece fall. If I would have made a grab for it I would have lost both pieces Oh well the search continues.

Wolfsix

I've had considerable fortune with my current project. I was building a Zündapp motorcycle (incl. w/ the 88 kit) and lost the main stand 2 separate times but it kept reappearing on my work surface! I also managed to drop the fuel tank cap on the floor but found it. surprisingly quick. The only thing lost so far is a photo etch latch for the other handle so I suppose I'm on the winning side here. Then again I don't have a carpet monster to fight: almost the entire apartment has parquetry.

Yeah, I have had similar encounters with the notorious carpet monster. But the funniest of all was when I lost a headlight of my mini cooper. I was painting it (attached to a clothes peg) when I heard a "pling!" I knew the headlight had gone to a better place. So, I couldn't carve a new one, since it was made of clear plastic, and was quite small. So I made a mould with the other part with 2-part epoxy putty and heatmolded a new one. After some six months after I finished my model, I suddenly saw a little piece of plastic on top of a static grass container on my desk. And of course it was the missing headlight!

Lay a light color sheet under your chair. The part falls and should be easily seen.

Hi all

Great news I found the piece that caused this thread!! I used an idea that was discussed on the first page. I got a high powered flaslight, got down leval with the carpet and within about five minutes I found it The carpet monster lost this round. Work on the M24 can now continue
Wolfsix

Well I too have lost quite a number of parts BUT I found most of them :-) :-) :-) :-) So from that experience I guess an appropriate defense against the mighty carpet gods is too just REMOVE THE DAMN CARPET & STICK TO YOUR DARK-COLORED FLOOR unless if your working with dark-colored parts!!! #:-) #:-)