WebSlave

Snap rings.

WTH? The other day I had to remove a couple small ones to change some rollers on my knurling tools. I know very well their reputation as "Jesus! Clips", so I was taking every precaution. In the middle of the garage, the floor was clean. I was on one side of the work area and one of the vehicles on the other. Moved slowly and deliberately, with my hands surrounding the ring nearly all of the time in case it tried to fly away. I was able to get both of them off without a hitch, which actually surprised me. My snap ring pliers just barely would catch on them. So I am feeling pretty good about all this. I had to straighten the rings a bit as they got bent a little bit removing them. I was working on the first one, trying one tool after another till I found one that seemed like it would form the ring around the post the best. I got it partially on, and then went to reposition the pliers so I could push it all the way in place. I even hesitated to make sure the ring was going to stay in place when I moved. OK, looks good.... **PLING**!! I was looking right at it but didn't even see it move.

I keep the floor to the garage pretty clean, and I looked EVERYWHERE for it. I mean crawling on my hands and knees EVERYWHERE. Even places I thought it couldn't possibly have gotten to. Never did find it. I had hoped the two robot vacuums I have that run in the garage every night might pick it up, but no such luck there neither. So I have an order in with Harbor Freight right now for a snap ring assortment, hoping that one of the sizes will fit that tool. Actually, I pulled out the plastic bag with the remains of the tool in it to show a friend of mine the size of that snap ring, and it seems to have escaped that closed plastic bag too. When I try another one, I am going to smack it with a hammer first to kill it.

Damn these things are evil!