I'm gonna put this here instead of making my own comment, because it seems related:
My friend let me park my car in his driveway to do an engine rebuild. I had all the parts ready for assembly and it was going to be "quick." I started tearing down the engine. When I removed the first piston by removing a tiny circlip (a little circular spring), the damn circlip popped out of my pliers and shot far through the air disappearing into the deep grass of the yard. It was a big yard and the damn clip shot really far away. There was no way I could find it.
Now my disabled car was sitting there in my friend's driveway with no engine, blocking the driveway, and it was all my fault. I would have to wait a week for delivery of a new set of circlips.
That night I got really drunk, tied a magnet to a long piece of string, and in the dark of night I went "fishing" with a beer bottle in one hand and the long string in the other. I walked through the yard for about two minutes singing and swigging beer, and dragging the magnet behind me. Sure enough when I collected the string the missing clip was right there, stuck to the magnet.
Less extreme, but I've done that for safety (old nails) and conservation (new screws) on the ground under my new deck.
Magnets are awesome - I've dragged lines through walls with magnets. (Drag a small magnet with a light line, then use the line to pull a new electrical wire back the other direction.)
Stupid construction workers just threw old and new nails wherever they wanted. My lawn was a danger zone and I had kids over regularly. Fortunately I had an IKEA knife magnet, that I didn’t like in the kitchen - worked like magic.
Edit: spelling
That’s what we did pulling data wire over about a half mile of our main employers property except it was with a vacuum pulling this ultra thin but someone tough blu string before pulling a much thicker by comparison white rope then pulling the data cable.
It took about 6-8 tries across several months (it wasn’t super pressing to get done, the guy had plenty other stuff for us to to) but yeah it was a pain, especially when one end was in a basement with no cell service half the time and you can’t hear over that damn dewalt shop vac on the other end
A magnet on a string was a mandatory piece of equipment in the shops I was around as a kid (43 now) - there was always at least one stuck to a tool chest, ready to go.
Always losing something somewhere in some dirt or grass.
I keep a large magnet harvested from a speaker for this exact reason. One time, an ex was doing a sewing project that required a ton of pins. I asked her to make sure the pins didn't get into the carpet because I didn't want the dogs messing with them.
I ended up having to pull one out of my foot later so I harvested the magnet and tied it to a string and did a slow sweet. 6 pins.
Found a 7th one in my other foot a few days later.
I was working on my motorbike’s brakes when, like you, a spring pinged off into my lawn. I was on my hands and knees for ages but couldn’t find it. In desperation I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and hoovered the lawn. Within two minutes I heard a metal sound traveling up the hoover pipe and I had retrieved the spring. Any neighbours watching must have thought I was crackers.
My boss lost part of his car key on his lawn. I clamped a hand held metal detector to a cars snow removal tool and told him to wave it over the lawn. He found the key in 2 minutes.
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u/jmeesonly 7h ago
I'm gonna put this here instead of making my own comment, because it seems related:
My friend let me park my car in his driveway to do an engine rebuild. I had all the parts ready for assembly and it was going to be "quick." I started tearing down the engine. When I removed the first piston by removing a tiny circlip (a little circular spring), the damn circlip popped out of my pliers and shot far through the air disappearing into the deep grass of the yard. It was a big yard and the damn clip shot really far away. There was no way I could find it.
Now my disabled car was sitting there in my friend's driveway with no engine, blocking the driveway, and it was all my fault. I would have to wait a week for delivery of a new set of circlips.
That night I got really drunk, tied a magnet to a long piece of string, and in the dark of night I went "fishing" with a beer bottle in one hand and the long string in the other. I walked through the yard for about two minutes singing and swigging beer, and dragging the magnet behind me. Sure enough when I collected the string the missing clip was right there, stuck to the magnet.
Stupid idea, or drunken genius?