Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Water Bath



Water Bath

At a Thrift Shop I found another aquarium heater for $2.00. I built a lab support stand from a piece of wood and a wooden dowel. Found the clamp and clamp holder at a surplus store for $2.00 each. A lab thermometer I already had. The Pyrex dish I have as well. The thermometer holder was made from a clothespin, plastic tube from a toy car and tape (I will add glue to make it permanent). The aquarium heater is placed in lab clamp and thermometer holder is placed in the clamp holder that clamped to the support stand. Then place all of this into a dish, beaker, etc. Make sure it is large enough to allow other lab equipment to sit in the water bath. And there you have a nice water bath for the lab.

You can use an aquarium thermometer instead of the lab one. You can find these at second-hand stores or in the trash or even buy a new very cheaply. I will be looking at using the slow cooker I found as a water bath as well. It does not have a way to set the temperature as easily as the above water bath can. It has 3 settings to use.

Water baths are a very important item in the lab and this was a relatively inexpensive way to make one.

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