Post by smshogun on Jul 13, 2014 14:58:25 GMT -5
We had one man who always claimed any tools lying about were his, and there were many rumours about him and one favourite was he had a tool stall at the local cattle market, so it was time for a little fun.
It was a boring shift, my headings were standing for lack of manpower, these were new headings and I had been on the pit top for several weeks preparing, refurbishing, and fabricating the equipment for these new headings and they were fully installed and ready to go, so I was relegated to general road duties which was examine the haulages, ropes, Manchester gates, and warwicks; about 90 minutes work. Being a heading fitter meant we got stuck in with the headers and this made the shifts fly by as you only ever stopped if you got a breakdown in one of your headings.
Going inbye was a train of supplies and it contained the packs of clay stemming we were using at that time, part of a damaged box fell off so I decided to make some tools out of clay, I made a couple of ball pein hammers, chisels, cold set, adjustable spanners and ring spanners, they were brilliant in their detailing except for they were clay coloured.
Everything about made of steel was rusty so I rubbed some of this onto everything which was supposed to be metal and with the fine rust on the clay surface they looked brilliant, and I covered the hammer shafts with a mixture of oil and coal dust and they looked fine and authentic. As everyone came outbye I arranged these clay tools on top of a toolbox and tool thief arrived, everyone was having a drink or collecting the clothing they had shed at the beginning of the shift before going inbye, so many men were milling about.
I asked who had left their tools out and tool thief jumped in straight away and claimed they were his, everyone turned around to watch him as they all knew they weren't his and as he picked up a chisel it just bent, everyone was in fits of laughter when they realised he had been had properly, and the laughter got louder when they realised they were all made from clay stemming, it made him look such a thingy that to my knowledge he never tried to lay claim to tools which weren't his after that.
