Books

It has been awhile since I added any information. I have spent some time in building my incubator. Testing it out exactly. I will be placing the fish tank heater into a glass dish of water to heat the incubator. I tested this out and it seems to work quite well. I will add either some copper sulphate or aquarium anti-microbial solution to the water to keep microbial life from growing in the glass dish. I need to come up with some shelves to hold plates, tubes and flasks at different heights in the incubator. I will post a final picture of the incubator when it is finished.

For father's day I received a wonderful book titled: Build-it-Yourself Science Laboratory by Raymond E. Barrett. It was published in 1963. It shows you how to build all kinds of lab equipment, for chemistry, physics, and biology. It even has questions to answer by scientific experimentation after each section. We need a book like this today for building our own labs.

Other books I have picked up for my growing library:

Magic with Chemistry by Edward L. Palder 1964.

150 Science Experiments Step-By-Step by Judith Viorst 1963.

Physics, Fun and Beyond by Eduardo de Campos Valadares 2006.

The Thomas Edison book of Easy and Incredible Experiments by the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation 1988.

Basic Chemistry Experiments: A Golden Hobby Book by Robert Brent 1965 edition.

So now I have many more books to add to my collection and more experiments to try out.

It has been awhile since I added any information. I have spent some time in building my incubator. Testing it out exactly. I will be placing the fish tank heater into a glass dish of water to heat the incubator. I tested this out and it seems to work quite well. I will add either some copper sulphate or aquarium anti-microbial solution to the water to keep microbial life from growing in the glass dish. I need to come up with some shelves to hold plates, tubes and flasks at different heights in the incubator. I will post a final picture of the incubator when it is finished.

For father's day I received a wonderful book titled: Build-it-Yourself Science Laboratory by Raymond E. Barrett. It was published in 1963. It shows you how to build all kinds of lab equipment, for chemistry, physics, and biology. It even has questions to answer by scientific experimentation after each section. We need a book like this today for building our own labs.

Other books I have picked up for my growing library:

Magic with Chemistry by Edward L. Palder 1964.

150 Science Experiments Step-By-Step by Judith Viorst 1963.

Physics, Fun and Beyond by Eduardo de Campos Valadares 2006.

The Thomas Edison book of Easy and Incredible Experiments by the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation 1988.

Basic Chemistry Experiments: A Golden Hobby Book by Robert Brent 1965 edition.

So now I have many more books to add to my collection and more experiments to try out.

Support Stand, Test Tubes and More

In picture #11 I quickly build this support stand from a curtain rod, some wood, coat hanger, clothespins and some screws. This support stand was built from a 10" x 6", 1" thick base of wood and a small 2" x 4" support. The rod is a curtain rod that slides into itself. I cut it down to the length I wanted it to open to. Picture #11b-c - Using a coat hanger I shaped a clamp or holder to fit the mouth end of my light bulb flask. Picture #11d - Using clothespins I make another clamp that can hold smaller objects such as glass tubes, funnel tubes or thermometer.

You can see in the pictures the flask and a thermometer being supported by this stand. It was very simple to make, it is adjustable, you can make it go higher or lower and best of all it is inexpensive. It worked very well. I intend to make some more, some smaller, some bigger and some with 2 or more rods attached to the base.

As stated before when you decide to build your own lab let family and friends know so they can collect items for you. In picture #12 you see a pile of tubes. The small ones are what some florists use for single flowers to keep them wet. The medium tubes are cigar tubes and the large ones held soap powder. All came from friends keeping these when they were done with them. Now all of these tubes are made of plastic but they are still good for mixing, centrifuging, and storing.

Also in this picture you see a couple of pieces of glass that I cut from larger glass plates. The larger one I use for chopping material up in my DNA extraction experiments. The smaller one covers my glass furniture coaster petri dish. These and others come from glass found in old thrown away picture frames that I found on garbage day.

For The DIYBIO Lab

As seen in picture #10 I found an old cooler out in my neighbour hood during garbage day. I hope to use the cooler and the aquarium heater to build an incubator for my cultures (bacterial or yeast and hopefully one day tissue). I picked up the heater and the pressure cooker from a second hand store for less than $10.00. The pressure cooker will be used to sterilize my culture media, water, etc. I will use an oven too sterilize my glassware and bleach for my plasticware. I found agar agar for my cultures and electrophoresis from an Indian grocery store. The microscope glass slide box is made from a cardboard box that is slightly wider than the slides. The slides are then separated on the sides by the perforated cardboard (some cookie bags have ribbed paper that can be sized and used to separate the slides) ripped apart and glued to the sides. This box cost me nothing to build.

You can also see on the side I found a new kit to play with. The DNA Wizard, I think adding this with the CSI DNA Laboratory I an do some DIYBIO (Do It Yourself Biology). Something I am very interested in (I should talk more about the CSI kit on a later date). The DNA Wizard has a few good things in it IE. build your own model of DNA, chromosome typing, DNA extraction and bacterial growth. It supplies you with many things to use including the bacteria. I bought it for $10.00 so it was not to bad, but at it's regular cost of $40.00 that is a bit too much. Most of what is in the kit can be picked up at home and at toy stores, except the bacteria. And that can be found in nature. A good book for doing DIYBIO is "Biotechnology Projects For Young Scientists" by Kenneth Rainis and George Nassis 1998. I have this on my library list.

I think it might be time to discuss some of the different books and links that I have found and use. Hopefully I can write about some of these in the next couple of posts.

More Inexpensive Lab Equipment

Here I build some very inexpensive lab equipment. Basically it was all free. You can't do any better than that.

In picture #7 I build flasks out of old light bulbs. Bend back the soft metal tip on the end of the bulb with a pair of pliers. Twist the metal piece so it breaks off. There is a small hole in the top of the bulb. Use a screwdriver to break the black substance away. Be careful to not break the bulb itself. If you have trouble breaking the black substance break it off with a pair of needle-nose pliers. Once the black substance is all broken away use a screwdriver to break the glass holding the filament. Shake out the bulb. Take some water and an old toothbrush and clean out the white film in the bulb. The metal screw top is sturdy enough to hold a cork or rubber stopper. And now we have a very inexpensive flask.

In picture #8 I build some wooden racks(again this is wood I found will walking around on garbage day). One is for test-tubes and the other lower profile one is used to hold many other items for easy access. The plastic dish soap bottles are thoroughly washed out and can hold regular water, distilled water or any other liquids you wish to dispense very easily. They have push down lids so if they are knocked over they will not spill.

Old Magazines

This past weekend I was cleaning the basement and found a couple of boxes full of old magazines. One box had old Astronomy magazines. The other one had old Scientific American magazines, I kept these for the Amateur Scientists column. Also in this box was Science Probe - The Amateur Scientist's Journal. I have 8 issues of Science Probe, I am not sure how many were released. I believe that a new journal for Amateur scientist's should be released again. There is Make magazine and it is a wonderful magazine, but it does not have enough science related articles. I have tried to search for Science Probe on the net but have found very little about it.

Also in this box is the CD of the Scientific American - The Amateur Scientist 2.0 - the complete collection. I can't remember what company this was purchased from. It has all the experiments from the Scientific American - The Amateur Scientist column. It is quite a treasure to find. Along with this I have the book "The Amateur Scientist" by C.L.Stong and "The Amateur Biologist" by Shawn Carlson. The CD contains old experiments with old information but a lot of the biology and chemistry experiments can still be done. The other experiments that include electronics and hardware that you may not find anymore may be hard to do or will require some tinkering to make happen. One thing I would like to do is create the electron microscope and attach it to a computer. I have always wanted to play with an electron microscope. I think you can still get the CD from the Society for Amateur Scientists. They can be found at sas.org.

I will be spending the next little while looking through this little piece of treasure that I found and dream of my next experiments.

My Lab

This is a picture of my lab right now. It is some what cluttered. I have small and large bins, parts drawers. They hold all kinds of things, such as rubber stoppers, corks, magnets, marbles, Y tubes, connecting tubes, lenses, etc. There is a couple of shelves that hold chemicals. The top shelve (not pictured) holds lab equipment.

In picture 9) on the right side you see I cut out the tops of juice and milk containers and used them as bins. They are placed in a metal shelving unit with the shelves about 1 foot apart. They hold all sorts of lab items. Test tubes, petri dishes, glass casters, cheese cloth, cotton balls and pads, electronics, plastic and glass jars, etc. The good thing about these is I can keep collecting filling them as I go along and they are free.

More Lab Equipment

By visiting second hand stores I have found a good collection of lab glassware and other lab equipment. It usually takes many trips before you might find something of use. I did find some great pieces of labware: 10 glass petri dishes that cost $1.00 each, 4 400 ml. beakers at $1.00 each and different flasks and test tubes.

In picture # 5 I found a box of glass furniture casters in the trash. These can be used as petri dishes, test dishes, animal dishes such as brine shrimp etc.

In picture # 4 I built some funnel stands from coat hangers and lab stands from 1/2 inch dowelling and 1 inch wood. They work great for supporting flasks, beakers and evaporating dishes while heating them.

In picture # 6 (not a very good picture) I show a laptop that was thrown out and some software and microphone that I put together as an oscilloscope. The software came from a book Electronic circuits for the evil genius : [57 lessons with projects] / Dave Cutcher. He even shows you how to create a test cable for the scope.

New Books

For Christmas this year I received 3 books about experimenting.

The first is 'Backyard Ballistics' by William Gurstelle, there are some 13 ballistic devices to create from household items. I have not had a real chance to look at this book, I will spend more time with it in the spring when the snow is gone.

The second book is 'Secret Science: 25 Science Experiments Your Teacher Doesn't Know About', By Steve Spangler. It has some interesting chemistry and physics experiments, from the new and exciting Mentos geyser to the Flying potatoes and exploding soda.

The final book is the most interesting and one of the most useful to the home experimenter. 'The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments' by Robert Bruce Thompson. This book shows you how to set up home lab, the different lab equipment needed and the chemicals used. The experiments are a great for learning the basics of chemistry experimentation. The section on handling chemicals safely is a must to have. Using the colour codes to distinguish apart the different types of chemicals and their disposal. The only thing I found disappointing is he did not talk about building a lab from scratch, but to purchase all the equipment needed for the experiments. This can be costly and the idea behind this blog is to build a home lab cheaply and to recycle most anything to build it.

Some Inexpensive Equipment

Several different items that you can collect and then create items from. Here in photo 1) you see juice cartons. If you clean them out they can make great storage containers, they are strong and durable and later when I have enough I will make a box that will house these cartons so I can use them for drawers. As you can see I cut a hole all the way around leaving about a half inch lip. This allows other cartons to sit on top of each other. Inside this one I have some old blown light bulbs. I hope to use these to make some flasks and dishes. I will post how this works out. I have collected about 20 of these bulbs so far. Remember I am trying to create my lab inexpensively.

In photo 2) you can see I am using travel soap dishes. They sell 2 for a dollar at the Dollar stores. You can stack them one on top of the other. They can hold electronics, corks, stoppers, marbles, litmus paper, etc. These containers can be used to make an electrophoresis chamber and a host of other containers such as housing for animals such as snails, worms, etc.

In photo 3) I make a centrifuge from a blender(found on garbage day in my neighbourhood), 2 large fruit bowls(chamber and lid), 3 large paper clips(to keep lid closed), metal bowl(center spin), 2 toothbrush holders(holds the test tubes or centrifuge tubes while spinning), 2 angle bars(hold the tooth brush holders to the metal bowl), 4 screws and nuts and 2 wire ties(are used to hold the tooth brush holders in place). This cost me $5.00 to put together, most items are found at the dollar store or around the house. Now you have to be careful when drilling the center hole in the metal bowl, it must be in the center exactly or you will get a wobble and your centrifuge will fly off your bench. The tooth brush holders need to be mounted exactly opposite each other and all parts between the 2 must have the same weight to balance it off.

These 3 items are just the beginning, I hope to continue creating my lab from inexpensive items such as these.