NOTES on SIMPLE HOME-MADE LABORATORY DEVICES HARRIETT H. FILLINGER* Hollins College, Hollins, Virginia
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FEW very simple, home-made laboratory devices have found constant use in our laboratoty for several years. In the hope that they may offer helpful suggestions to others they are herein reported. Figure 1 shows a storage battery carriage made of scraps of lumber and four ball-bearing roller casters purchased at a dime store. Only a moment's reflection is necessary to convince the reader of the usefulness of this article. After one has lifted and carried a few
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FIGURB2
storage batteries about the laboratory the thought of having. a chance to "kick" one about the room easily, a t wit, offers an appeal to his pent-up emotion as w& as to his ideas of conservation of physical energy. Figure 2 shows cork stoppers used as test-tube stands. T h e writer is indebted to Professor Fritz Marti of Houins College for the diagrammatic drawings used.
These, even the W t e r ones, hold a 25-millimeter tube firmly and securely. If both the holder and the stopper in the test-tube are painted black with India ink or with flat black paint the whole presents a most attractive appearance in a display cabinet. A convenient pipet is made by attaching to an ordinary two-milliliter graduated pipet a bulb from an ordinary medicine dropper. This is most useful in removing from a bottle small quantities of such liquids as bromine. A laboratory pen can be made from a pen point, a glass rod, and a piece of rubber tubing. Any number of such pens can be prepared at little ewense-one for each color of ink wk?h one desires to use. Students delight in these. F~gure3 1s presented as a freshman chemistry student contribution which has proved helpful to students over a period of several years. The test-tube clamp holds the small heaker M v in a somewhat more nearly vertical position thanAthatshown in the diagram during the boiling of the water in the larger beaker. This diagram shows a very satisfactory arrangement for securing a large number of water-baths a t no extra expense.
