Speaking of Precision

I know a lady shop owner who did exactly that on a new piece of equipment...

Obligatory.

As I understand it, Swingline didn't make red staplers until after fans of the movie 'Office Space' generated numerous requests for them.

Beat me to it!

"Yeah, I'm going to need you to move down to the basement."

Notch your initials in your tools or they walk away quicker than you can turn around. Be prepared to slap hands and shout or they walk away even with your initials on them.

I know, sounds odd, but a workshop is a rough place sometimes and if you can not defend your tools in other hands ("heh man - this is mine - swearing") you have to look elsewhere.

And what better is there than to find somebody elses tools without initials.

At some point you might gain a level where nobody would take the tool off you.

Thats when you should take a seat in the office. 3 shouts later you dont need a visual marking anymore...

Cheers IS

Shipyard where I had worked had (2) tool rooms, one tool room painted all their tools a pastel purple, the other pinkish.

very hard to work inconspicuous with a pink Milwaukee Drill Motor if one were to walk off with it.. (they totally painted all over their handtools) Plus their hand tools were ID'ed with a number.

When I started my shop, shortly after when I started hiring, there was one person after I had hired thim, tools started to disappear. even thou on all my tools and equipment I had engraved an ID on all the tools and entered them in an excel file. I also used this file to log in service to the tools also such as when purchased or any miantenance on them such as with grinders and drill motors replacing brushes or turning down armatures and such.

Anyways as this employee was working with his tools, I notice some of his tools had grind marks on it. Like something was ground off, (an ID number I suspect) because through out, he would talk that he buys all his tools new.

As the tools became missing, I then bought some baby blue enamel and paint a good section on the tools, (not totally like at the yard). The only one that complained was the one employee that I suspected, he thought I was losing it and going crazy for doing such a thing.

When I did leave him go, I inspected his box, and he had very little of his tools in the box, but he had a large amount of consumables, which he admitted that they came from the shop, so I pulled items that I could identify that came from the shop which did consist of consumables such as welding lenses and such.

As far as the consumables, there is give and take, employees would asked if they could get some filler rods or grinding disks or use some tools because they had work around the their house for repairs. Same employees that go the extra mile without even being asked and I was more than happy to accommodate.

But, this guy after I inspected his box, there was an area of his box where he was jumpy.

When he was leaving he made a comment and I asked him to pull a drawer out. Behind the drawer was some of the shops welding leathers stuffed behind it that he was using the day before.

One added benefit this painting done was, when I was working in the field with other contractors at the customer, it made it easy to identify my tools.

I paint my tools and cases with bright yellow paint.

When on a site with multiple teams its a good deterrent for permanent lending.

Aesthetic defacing of new equipment is a good theft deterrent too.

New laptop.....soldering iron now please!

When I was doing field work on automatic gates and such. I had my tools marked with florescent blue paint. When I worked after dark.. which was often.. I could use a black light to make sure I had everything packed up that may have been hiding in plain sight otherwise.. as well as keeping them out of other trades hands..

I like the more visual effects, so its not so stealthy