24 May 2002

Outfitting Your Laboratory Part III : More Sources of Inexpensive Equipment

by David Dechant

Besides dumpstering, curbing is the next best way to obtain "free" laboratory equipment. Here again though, most of what you will find is electronic equipment, but you never can be certain of what is out there unless you look. Quite simply, curbing entails going to a neighborhood on trash pickup day, before the trash men arrive, and looking through what other people have thrown out. I have recovered electronic gear, clothing, books, antiques, furniture, storage shelving/cabinets, and have even found a valuable stamp collection. Since so much usable stuff is available from curbing it should not surprise you to know that the competition is mighty stiff out there for this type of trash. That is, where my wife and I just engaged in curbing for some fun and some treasure hunting thrills others we met made a living at this form of recycling. Some folks we met were not happy with us on their turf, but as always, it is first come first served. For the most part there were never any people problems and we have met some really creative, dynamic folks during our curbing adventures. My wife and I combined curbing with taking our children to school and we just looked at what was on the curb along the way. In addition to the useful items we recovered I picked up any aluminum or old computers I could strip down for circuit boards and recycled these items, also much of the clothing was donated to a Goodwill donation center.

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The last freebies can come from places most folks would not think of (I consider dumpstering and curbing to be obvious). The next time you have your teeth cleaned, ask your dental hygienist what becomes of the worn out or broken dental instruments. I found that the dentists in the office I visit either save the old instruments for individuals who request them to do so or simply throw them away. These instruments are still good for a hobbyist who needs small instruments and can be used as is or reground into something else for a variety of special purposes. Over a several year period, I received so many dental instruments that I donate approximately twenty pounds of these instruments along with two truckloads of other medical supplies (surgical supplies, stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, etc.) to a doctor who was sending medical supplies to a refugee camp in Bosnia. You just never know how your recycling efforts may pay off and help someone else out.

While taking a routine physical examination several years ago I explained to the nurse that I was an amateur scientist and was working on a project to monitor my heart rate on an oscilloscope and needed the tabs she used to take my electrocardiogram (EKG). She not only gave me the tabs she used on me but threw in two packs of new ones and a nursing manual giving a detailed explanation of the EKG procedure which included where to place the tabs and a brief interpretation of commonly seen EKG results. So do not be bashful, I believe that if you have a genuine need for an item that is commonly discarded by a professional you know while he or she is practicing their profession just ask them for it. You may be very surprised as to what you will walk away with. When I needed computer parts, I volunteered to work reconditioning computers at a non-profit organization who gave the computers to the disabled. I not only benefited the community by contributing my time and knowledge for a worthy cause, but was occasionally rewarded with unique computer parts or other miscellaneous supplies that they could not use, all the while enhancing my knowledge of computers.

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Now I will discuss the sources of equipment where you will have to part with some of your hard-earned dollars. Sad but true, you just can not get it all for free. However, we try to obtain the bulk of what we need at deep discounts. A word of caution, before going to a flea market, thrift store, salvage store, or yard sale, you should try to have an idea of what items sell for new out of a catalog. Ward’s, Fischer Scientific, Ace Glass, Kimble-Kontes Glass, and Corning Glass catalogs can be viewed on the Internet. Just conduct a search using the company name and view the items you are interested in. Most of the thrift/salvage stores will have anything from electronic gear to laboratory glassware and of course a whole lot of other stuff. I typically do not purchase electronic gear at a store unless I know for certain that it works and I really need it. Glassware and microscopes can be found in these stores in surprisingly good condition. Yet some savvy is needed to insure you do not get taken on what appears to be a deal and knowing what items cost new will help you to avoid this pitfall.

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I paid $130 for my Bausch & Lomb laboratory microscope that was made in the 1960’s. The optics were in excellent condition and I have been very happy with it. Another good buy is the Parco microscope I found for $10. It was missing two objective lenses which I found on another damaged Bausch & Lomb microscope that I paid $5 for. What is left of this microscope will be used in constructing a microphotography setup so that nothing gets wasted. I found a nice desiccator at a thrift store for a dollar along with a mess of frosted Erlenmeyer flasks that were being sold as vases for $.80 each. The desiccator sells for over $50 in the Ace Glass catalog and the least expensive Erlenmeyer’s of this size and type sell for over $15 each. At a salvage store I purchased a large box of glassware for $50 that was worth over $100. This past weekend my wife and I visited a local antique shop where I located a number of nice embossed reagent bottles (too expensive at $10 each) and a nice student Bausch & Lomb microscope for $89 that was a great deal. But what I purchased was an 1858 copyrighted book titled Botany for Young People that was in excellent condition for $12. The old biology and chemistry books are the very best for obtaining formulations needed for making a wide variety of acids and reagents from scratch, something modern textbooks on these subjects tend to leave out. This type of information could commonly be found in pre-1960 chemistry or biology textbooks and is extremely handy for the amateur scientist.

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It was at a salvage store that I purchased two dental instrument autoclaves for a total of $105. After some searching I found an individual who reconditioned one and kept the second for his labor and material costs so I ended up with a nice small autoclave for just over $100 and that is a great deal. One word about used autoclaves, it is usually the heating element that goes out first and the autoclaves I purchased were designed to use chemical sterilizing solutions not water, it was converted to using water in the reconditioning process. Also make certain that the door seal is intact and not cracked or missing since it is difficult to replace. I took a big chance when I purchased these two autoclaves and was rewarded as a result of the search I conducted to locate a person who could get them operating.

The lens I used to make the telephoto lens adapter for my digital camera came from some obscure piece of military equipment I paid a dollar for at a flea market. The accompanying photograph of the face of a fly gives you some idea of the hours of fun (and the thousands of photographs I’ve taken) that have resulted from taking close up pictures of bugs in their natural environment. This was one dollar well spent and with some ingenuity has opened a new world of nature investigations for me.

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Yard sales always present an opportunity for finding great laboratory equipment or good books. I purchases five 25mL volumetric pipettes for $.25 each and several reagent bottles for $.50 each at a nearby yard sale. Keep in mind that some common household items can be purchased inexpensively at a yard sale and utilized for other purposes in the laboratory. For example, a crock-pot with sand or water in the bottom can be used to incubate bacteria or to keep any type of chemical solution at a constant temperature. That old blender can be put to good use for blending a wide variety of compost or soil mixtures. Do not forget that old Tupperware or glass containers with ground glass lids are excellent for storing a wide variety of small laboratory items or bulk chemical compounds. I also use clean glass mason jars and discarded glass vitamin bottles to store a wide variety of items.

I’m sure many of you who read these articles on obtaining inexpensive equipment must think I have just been real lucky and feel that you could never make the same discoveries. Please keep in mind that these articles are the culmination of over thirteen years of employing all the methods discussed so far, plus those to be mentioned in my last installment of this series. Many miles have been put on my vehicle along with the hours spent cleaning parts, stripping components, and sorting/storing all of this stuff. I may go for a year or more and not really make any great finds. But as the science that I engage in changes or expands in new directions I seem to find ways to get what I need and it often comes in vast quantities. Almost like Shawn and Sheldon obtaining the Brown University equipment, when this happens for me I can often take or purchase only what fills my most immediate needs and let go of the rest. I am sure Shawn is finding out that cataloging and storing all of this stuff can become problematic. In my final installment I will discuss what type of laboratory equipment can be found on the Internet and at government auctions. And lastly some major consequences of all of these activities will be covered, specifically, organizing all of this stuff to make finding a component easy when you need it. Plus, just what will you do with all the leftover stuff you have after you have stripped out what you want from a piece of equipment?

Happy hunting.