Meme of the week
Good morning, Machinists.
Beer cans. Candy wrappers. Cigarette papers. A page out of a parts catalogue.
Apparently, some of the most useful things in a machinist’s toolbox weren’t sold as tools.
Rob asked this in the MACHINIST group:
“What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever used as an emergency shim, spacer, or fix-on-the-fly?”
The comments gave us everything from a Pop-Tart wrapper to a pool ball used in a milling setup.
And a few “temporary” repairs that lasted long enough for everyone to forget about them.
First, finish your beer. Then save the can.
Beer cans and soda cans came up over and over.
Shims. Spacers. Motor alignment. An exhaust repair.
Brian Copley kept it simple:
“Use beer can for shim stock.”
Gary Symonds said he’d used cut-up beer and soda cans to shim a 400 HP motor alignment.
That can had a pretty big second career.
But the drinks weren’t the only things getting repurposed. Lunch wrappers were putting in work, too.
Orion Hunnel:
“Pop tart wrapper. Needed half a thou of shim and it was perfect. Not the individual ones, gotta be that silver stuff.”
Very specific. This man knows his Pop-Tart packaging.
Wally Felice remembered using the old aluminum foil wrapping from a Hershey bar for shim stock and centering a lathe tool.
As he put it:
“Plus it was a good excuse to buy a candy bar.”
Shop supplies. Put it on the expense report.
The cigarette pack was apparently a complete shim assortment
Rolling papers. Cellophane. The foil inside the pack. The pack itself.
If there was a cigarette pack in the shop, somebody had found another use for it.
Paul Steer described using the cellophane to touch off tools and shim fits throughout his career. When he retired, he found four packs’ worth saved in his toolbox.
He kept it.
After that many years, you’re not throwing out perfectly good inventory.
Chayne Hardenbrook added:
“Old guy I used to work with had a pack of zig zags for touching off and totally not anything else.”
Strictly a precision instrument.
Temporary. Check back in six years.
Some of the best comments weren’t about what people used.
They were about how long it stayed there.
Ed Gunter:
“Cut up a tape measure used it in a bearing bore. Temporary fix that was still running 6 years later.”
One commenter described repairing a dryer wheel with a paper shim when money was tight and replacement parts weren’t an option over a holiday.
It lasted four years.
They’d forgotten about it by the time the other wheel failed.
Erick Besmen said he stretch-wrapped a coolant line on a Blanchard grinder and it held for five years.
Then it started leaking.
His next move?
“Well yes I did it again.”
Hard to argue with five years of service when you’re standing there holding the same roll.
Some people see scrap. Others see the part they need.
Adam Danchick made a shim washer from the face of a broken dial indicator.
It lives inside the apron of his Colchester lathe.
“Still has the numbers and tick marks on it.”
A dial indicator that retired from measuring and went straight into supporting production.
He also used the parts order form from a Summit Racing catalogue as a paper shim in his rotary table.
Todd Lashuay mentioned aluminum foil tape. Others named pallet banding, old saw blades, pennies, hotel key cards and guitar picks.
But Ken Heafner had one of the more unusual shop stories: an 8 ball from the company break room pool table, used in a setup on a Deckel horizontal mill.
“Sing out Ted if you see this, you’re a legend and my hero!”
Somewhere, somebody was trying to finish a game of pool while Ted was making parts.
A few comments deserve their own drawer
Fred Hunt:
“I always use old hotel key cards… it keeps my wife on her toes when she starts finding miscellaneous hotel cards in my dirty clothes.”
That explanation probably takes longer than the repair.
Gareth J Heeter, on the strangest thing he’d used:
“The print that lied to me about the part being pre-squared upon arrival, prior to it being machined.”
Finally. A useful application for that print.
Scott Wyosnick:
“Padlock key. It mic’d just right.”
That’s about as machinist an explanation as you’ll get.
And Eskee Boy:
“My wallet is only a few microns thick at the moment 🤷♂️ 😂”
Precision shim stock. Unfortunately.
Why we keep the weird stuff
A piece of banding. A broken indicator. Some foil folded up in a drawer.
To anyone else, it looks like junk.
You remember the one time it got you through a job.
Paul Steer summed it up:
“You work with what you have.”
That was the thread. People remembering the odd little thing that solved a problem when the right part wasn’t there.
Then putting what was left back in the toolbox.
Because you might need it again.
What’s your best improvised shop fix—and how long did that “temporary” repair actually last?
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