Age. You forget things. That periodic table of elements I could merrily recite from memory down to the 60th element or so a few decades ago now sees me stuck at fifteen. Potassium, if I got that right.

And what with American liability law being what it is, with no one willing to accept responsibility for their actions, can you wonder about surgeons’ approach to tool management as a counterpoint to age? Each instrument is inventoried before and after the operation, in the hope that a scalpel, say, is not left inside the patient when he is sown up. I call this the ‘Surgeon’s Rule’.

This disciplined approach works every bit as well for this aging amateur mechanic, for while the risks are lower and the only person left to sue is yourself when you mess up, accounting for all your tools is no bad thing before exiting the hallowed workspace and flooring the throttle.

The wrench section on the peg board wall.

It is proper inventory management which has long seen me hang most of my tools from pegboards, believing that keeping them in drawers is exactly wrong. So forget those dreams of mega-buck SnapOn rolling tool chests. An utter waste of money. A tool you cannot see is a tool you mislay.

Further, those peg boards are white because not only are the stock brown ones depressing to contemplate, sucking light out of the workspace, white also sets the tools off nicely for ease of location.

The peg boards are attached to pine battens, the latter screwed into the wall studs behind the drywall, using a stud finder. That finder is like a politician, lying much of the time, but you get there eventually. The battens ensure that the whole thing is robust – tools can weigh a lot – and also provide offset from the wall for the hooks, once inserted.

Another dictate is that tools should never be stacked, as the one in the back will be every bit as lost as the one in that rolling cart’s tray. As the image shows I break this rule here and there, for lack of space, but overall it’s what you might style a solid effort.

That image speaks to a disciplined filing approach, if nothing else, yet the Surgeon’s Rule let me down the other day, because I failed to follow it. Check the red circle and there’s obviously a 19mm combination wrench missing. It is now to be found in one of my neighbors’ garages as it was left in place by yours truly when tightening the 19mm bolt on the crossbar which retains my old bike’s engine in the frame. I place one 19mm wrench on the left where it ‘locks’ against the exhaust pipe, then have at it on the other side to loosen the crossbar which allows the frame’s downtubes to separate ever so slightly, in turn making the oil filter cover accessible for removal. Not the greatest design by BMW, but not a big deal in the grand scheme of life.

I did not inventory my tools before riding around the neighborhood when the job was completed and later realized I had left the beautiful French Facom wrench in place when riding off. It fell off somewhere in the vicinity of my home and subsequent desperate searches (heck, any excuse for a ride) failed.

So I had to resort to this – mercifully Amazon stocks German Stahlwhille wrenches, if not the even more lovely French Facom ones:

The replacement.

So the rule here is to follow the Surgeon’s Rule religiously. And never, never, never buy cheap, imported tools. Real wrenches are made by Stahlwille and Facom. Yes, a few more dollars but a lifetime investment and one which will repay the premium paid every time you grasp that beautifully finished surface.