Hello wormers,
We need to order some rubber bands for holding 3.5cm petri dish stacks. Can anyone share your catalog information?
Thanks a lot.
Really, I think any will do.
BUT if you want to use rubber bands of science, you could fork out the dough and use some of the fancy INDESTRUCTIBLE rubber bands my drosophila colleagues use…
before we open up the forum as a local Staples outlet, maybe we can get some perspective here?
Of course not all rubber bands are equal… some are more equal than others (to misquote George)…but when I read (on the aforementioned webpage) phrases such as “Exceeds federal specifications A-A-131”, then I know they are just plain old rubber bands.
Next we will be discussing the best storage boxes for plates…upps, sorry we already have.
I don’t even use rubber bands for anything (appropriate usage of #yolo) except flinging and trying to hit people across the lab…wait…it wasn’t me…
But really, keep in mind that most of our funding for our work is from tax payers’ or charitable organizations’ money. Be thrifty where you can be.
Well, I use rubber bands both for shooting and for binding plates and i think the indestructible ones sound pretty cool.
it is really annoying when an old rubber band breaks on a tilting stack of plates in the incubator. thanks for posting the link snug!
There’s always masking tape - it’s not reusable like rubber bands, but it’s cheap, and it doesn’t snap or roll off the side. Tape up one side of a stack (of limited height) and they’ll stay together unless you drop them, and if you drop a stack a rubber band might not save you. Tape up opposing sides of a stack and you are free to drop them if that’s your custom.
If you do go with masking tape, beware of generic brands that leave little bits of sticky glue residue everywhere; after trying some we only use name-brand masking tape. Still a lot cheaper than Time Tape.
Oh, and I’m with Steve and Snug: I really doubt those “pale crepe gold high rubber content” rubber bands are usefully better than the standard rubber bands from the same company, which Amazon or Office Depot will happily sell you at 1/4 - 1/3 the price.
ah, personal preference…
i once had a discussion with ron ellis about different worm pick shapes (golf club vs straight blade) and rather than just agreeing with me that he was using the wrong shape
he quoted RL Stephenson “Each man among us prefers his own aim, and I prefer mine;”.
if you put the tape on one side of the plate stack and then it tips or slips it acts kind of like a jacob’s ladder. do both sides if you must use tape….
i am now curious about those rubber bands though. how about it snug, can you tell the difference?
The indestructible ones were robust and felt like cash money. Looked like they could secure vials together well. 10/10 victims of elastic sniping were considerably agitated.
The bands themselves are pretty strong though, so if you’re using budget dishes for your plates it might not be optimal. We use some pretty average vented plates from Fisher and I’d rather go with dollar store bands or those fancy crepe ones instead. I feel like the indestructible ones would be a bit too tight on a plate stack (well I guess it depends on how many plates you’re stacking…).
in a genuine effort to help the worm community, I have scanned the Internet for Solutions to this problem.
Before releasing to the unsuspecting hoards of wormers the fruits of my search, I would make a few observations.
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There will be a physical limit to how many plates you can stack and ‘band’…trial and error will guide your way in this quest for the truth.
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The taping variant suffers the same physical limitations as those drawn by rubber, too many and you spray them all across the lab trying to put the tape on.
There are solutions out there that either work directly or could be fashioned to work by your technical dept. (assuming the University hasn’t shut it down):
Other solutions spring to mind…
Employ a lab assistant with enormous Hands…problem solved.
Superglue a plate to each finger…a one off solution.
Ask your Mum if you can borrow her Party Susan…an elegant solution.
Now, as Robert Downey Jr. would say, ‘can we crack on?’.
- trade off, enormous handed lab assistant would just be awful at picking, also requires you pay them money to keep them alive
- supergluing your fingers would prevent you from being able to fire elastics at labmates, thus unfavourable
- use poker chip holders
I want to know who buys that rack Steve linked to. It’s shiny, sure, but I think you could make something that would work about as well with a drill, a piece of discarded wood, doweling, and Elmer’s wood glue, for a 50th the price.
