Friday, August 19, 2011

Time for a silly video

It's been a long week and there's plenty of time for uh, (in the immortal words of uncle sam), general DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMing next week. (For a nasty reality check, see Paul Hodges.)

Instead, check out these kids pulling a really long TLC spotter.



This is a little silly, but seriously, it's one of the most therapeutic things to do in the world. Everything fades away in the light of that awesome heat.

See you on Monday. 

8 comments:

  1. And folks wonder why chemists can't get hot girlfriends.

    The title should be The World's Most Useless TLC Spotter, given how thin it is.

    Yeah, yeah, I know. Lighten up.

    PS-I buy my TLC spotters, so there!

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  2. Since I am always limited by my own arm span when I make TLC spotters, it's pretty cool.

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  3. Stewie Griffin says:
    Who pulls/buys spotters anymore? After reading Kyle's blog several years ago I switched to using a 22G needle. Just gently remove the sharp tip (without actually closing up the needle) and presto! The grey 22G from Fisher are a bit longer than normal needles. I made up 4 of these bad boys in my 2nd year of grad school and they lasted the entire time.
    Now if you need to spot a reaction and the needle won't reach the solution, then ok fine I'd pull a quick spotter.

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  4. I tried pulling spotters with a Bunsen burner the other day and failed miserably. I can only make wing-span-long ones with a Meker burner (like the people in the video have).

    Eventually, I found some capillaries in a drawer, and they worked fine. I'll probably never go back.

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  5. You can do it, but you need a really good blue flame (the little blue cone) from the Bunsen burner.

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  6. mamid says...

    Want a simple, easy to make and use spotter? One that would cost you less than a dime and maybe 5 minutes?
    Check this:

    J. Chem. Educ., 2011, 88(5), pp 673–674
    DOI: 10.1021/ed1005932

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  7. @Chemjobber: or you need to find a glass tubing made from low-melting glass. Disposable Pasteur pipets work fine even with a propane-can torch. (but I find it easier to buy TLC capillaries by a pound, from Chemglass. For a really fine work I use Drummond microcaps, 4uL size. )

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  8. @The Forum: Maybe it's just me, but the 9" Pasteur pipettes seem to yield "better" spotters than the 5-3/4" ones.

    Now for the $1 question: What's your favorite way of snapping/cutting your spotter to get flat tips?

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20