Some of you more "experienced" people will remember the little saws that we used to score the microhematocrit tubes so we could break off the part with the immature red cells for antigen typing someone who had been recently transfused.  What the heck were those saws meant for originally?  I feel like they came with something else in the lab.  Were they for general chemistry glass tubing?  Also, what tool works well now for scoring the plastic-coated glass microhematocrit tubes since those little saws aren't available?  I found a few centimeters of staples (ready to be put in a stapler) could work.  Hack saw blade?

For some reason I remember them being simple knives.

Something like this, it just needed to score the glass, or now, plastic covered glass.

We used a "Machinist File" to cut glass crit tubes back in the day for baby Bilis.  You can get them for less than $10 at Grangier or other suppliers.

We used a triangle file - a machinist file? - I forgot all about those baby bilis... Also imagined the IRL retic retrieval was more sophisticated than that - pretty labor intensive.  Do you remember freezing and motionless thawing serum to concentrate the antibody?  I swear it worked for me sometimes - clearer reactions- from what I remember anyway...

1 hour ago, jnadeau said:

We used a triangle file - a machinist file? - I forgot all about those baby bilis... Also imagined the IRL retic retrieval was more sophisticated than that - pretty labor intensive.  Do you remember freezing and motionless thawing serum to concentrate the antibody?  I swear it worked for me sometimes - clearer reactions- from what I remember anyway...

The triangle file is the same thing.  We just called it the "file" but I needed to make it more clear for the post.  My father-in-law had the same tool when we cleaned out his garage and it brought back memories.  I worked with a woman old enough to have performed pregnancy tests using frogs and you guessed it... rabbits!  She was my partner on weekends, she the Lab elder and me the Lab baby.  It was awesome to hear her stories!

9 hours ago, jnadeau said:

We used a triangle file - a machinist file? - I forgot all about those baby bilis... Also imagined the IRL retic retriev  Do you remember freezing and motionless thawing serum to concentrate the antibody?  I swear it worked for me sometimes - clearer reactions- from what I remember anyway...

Would you explain it more specifically, please? It sounds new to me.

 

I mean the freezing and thawing test.

 

Edited July 13, 20241 yr by Yanxia

Harbor freight mini files are your friend.