Your best roadside tool find

Driving along through dairy country upstate NY near Oneonta came upon an old railroad forge on the side of a dirt road, pipe legs, cast iron table, fire pot with water trough cast right into the table it came with a buffalo forge hand crank blower it had a sign said 25 dollars i went up to the house and paid the lady trying to hide my grin.

I had to fabricate the air plumbing and tuyere but it still rocks the soft coal 20 + years later. At that time it was hard to find good soft coal and i made a deal to do some welding in trade for some supposedly nice soft coal well the guy gave me a few bags to try and that stuff the yellow smoke almost smoked the neighbors out. I refused the deal to discount the job in trade for a ton of that crap. The owner was ****** but hey that stuff would take your breath away.

bob
 
You guys are luckier than I am! The only thing I ever found was a nice flashlight,which I still use!:)
 
Things I've found along the road. My wife is getting used to me slowing down, backing up, turning around and coming back with a treasure.

ViceGrip

1 lb hammer

Long flat blade screwdriver.

A pair of gloves. I was walking and saw a glove and picked it up. About a 1/4 mile further, there was the other one. What's the chance of that? LoL!

I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.

Under a hood 8mm Snap On socket. I had the owner of the car return it to where she normally had the car worked on.

I saw a guy driving with his work gloves on his truck bumper. At a traffic light, I jumped out of my car, grabbed them off of the bumper and ran up to his window with them. I'm sure at first, I freaked the poor guy out. He was thankful to get his gloves.

Not tool related, walking around the Dome in MPLS found a $20.00. :)
 
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I found a pair of Channelock brand long nose pliers in the street in front of my house several years ago.

A few months ago a couple down the street was moving out, and they'd put two 8 gallon Rubbermaid Action Packers out for trash pickup. I grabbed them before they went to the incinerator. A few minutes cleanup and they were good as new.
 
Someone in Baclif,Tx found a nearly new Sawzall in its original case last year. I drove to the hardware store about a mile away when I realized I left the tail gate down on my pickup with the saw sitting on it. In less than 3 minutes that saw disappeared never to be seen again. I will bet that saw never even hit the ground before it disappeared. There was no evidence of the saw or a living human in the area :thinking:

Randy
 
Driving around fixing ATMs I have found about every hand tool you can imagine. Also jammed inside my ATMs... Best was a 10mm Snap On wrench. When I purchased a metal detector years ago I was poking around in the yard and found a screw driver burial ground. Previous owners of my house for some reason buried about 2 dozen screwdrivers all over the back yard.
 
i can't really say there's a best find but over the years i have found multiple wrenches, screwdrivers, chain, and pliers.
but if i had to pick a most valuable,:thinking:
it would be an Aluminum Handle Rigid 3 ft pipe wrench.
 
Found all the usual stuff, but lately, the best stuff I find above the ceiling tiles at the hospitals I work in. All sorts of hand tools and instruments. Any marked with owners I can find are returned, but surprisingly, some of the more expensive stuff has no one's name on it. Found several MagLite flashlights, some even with good batteries.:thumbsup:
 
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