Bugger...

[heroic]

If you are going to let a hot soldering iron roll off
the table don't walk back into the room
later in bare feet.....yep that lesson is
burnt into my...err foot.

If you are working with a soldering iron, it is vitally important NOT to try to catch it when your elbow knocks it out of its stand.

Please don't ask me how I learned this (age 11).

[-=Jim=-]

If you are working with a soldering iron, it is vitally important NOT to try to catch it when your elbow knocks it out of its stand.

It's really hard to believe how long you will hold on to a hot iron before your brain catches up. By the time you try to drop it it's stuck to your hand. At you you were young I've done it at least twice as an adult.

[DMills]

Soldering iron, shorts = bad idea!

Also, when (aged about 11 or so) your parents move and you are setting up your new room, it is a BAD idea to, having discovered that the mains lead for the stereo is too short, bodge a mains connection in the middle of the floor.

I stood on the exposed screw terminals as I rolled out of bed the next morning!

Other bad plans include but are not limited to :

When banned by the parents from using active devices (over a minor bit of pirate radio, age 12 or so), the appropriate answer is probably NOT to build a paulsen arc transmitter (They, and the authorities were not amused, doubly so as I had gutted the microwave oven for the PSU).

On a school trip to a local nuclear power plant, a bit of foil containing a few tens of micro curies of powdered alpha emitter can cause more pain then you would believe if surreptitiously deposited all over your teacher and the more rabid anti nuke kids (Amusing but **REALLY** not worth the trouble).

Making 'lighting' for a school show with a cinema projection carbon, a 'bastard' file and DC from the 48V central emergency lighting battery room, eye protection would have been good.

Do NOT get caught nitrating old bacon fat from the kitchen in a lab sink (Hey we were doing it under crushed ice, what's the problem, at least we didn't do it right in the grease trap (Which had been the first plan)). This one most especially goes down very badly when the head of chemistry is ex EOD.

Walking into a major police station and handing over a bottle of dry picric acid found in grandads shed is also not to be encouraged.

Regards, Dan.

[blowfly]

I'm thinking about buying a drill press to drill & tap my optical plate. The machine shop here wants $200 to do this for me and I've seen drill presses for about that much. Am I asking for trouble? Just wondering what I'm getting myself into.

Anyone have a recommendation on a good drill press?

Mike

[Synce]

I'm thinking about buying a drill press to drill & tap my optical plate. The machine shop here wants $200 to do this for me and I've seen drill presses for about that much. Am I asking for trouble? Just wondering what I'm getting myself into.

Anyone have a recommendation on a good drill press?

Mike

Using a drill press isn't that bad. I'm in the process of drilling my optical plate now. I guess you just have to decide whether the labor is worth $200. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and it still seems impossible to drill every hole in the perfect location but, they are pretty dang close and I'm still able to mount everything fine. That's what adjustable mounts are for!

[Doc]

Using a drill press isn't that bad. I'm in the process of drilling my optical plate now. I guess you just have to decide whether the labor is worth $200. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and it still seems impossible to drill every hole in the perfect location but, they are pretty dang close and I'm still able to mount everything fine. That's what adjustable mounts are for!

Use a centre punch.

[Synce]

Use a centre punch.

I do...and a square. I'm only talking 1mm or so. Almost too small to notice without looking very closely. I'm a perfectionist and probably a tad OCD.

[300EVIL]

Soldering iron, shorts = bad idea!

Also, when (aged about 11 or so) your parents move and you are setting up your new room, it is a BAD idea to, having discovered that the mains lead for the stereo is too short, bodge a mains connection in the middle of the floor.

I stood on the exposed screw terminals as I rolled out of bed the next morning!

Other bad plans include but are not limited to :

When banned by the parents from using active devices (over a minor bit of pirate radio, age 12 or so), the appropriate answer is probably NOT to build a paulsen arc transmitter (They, and the authorities were not amused, doubly so as I had gutted the microwave oven for the PSU).

On a school trip to a local nuclear power plant, a bit of foil containing a few tens of micro curies of powdered alpha emitter can cause more pain then you would believe if surreptitiously deposited all over your teacher and the more rabid anti nuke kids (Amusing but **REALLY** not worth the trouble).

Making 'lighting' for a school show with a cinema projection carbon, a 'bastard' file and DC from the 48V central emergency lighting battery room, eye protection would have been good.

Do NOT get caught nitrating old bacon fat from the kitchen in a lab sink (Hey we were doing it under crushed ice, what's the problem, at least we didn't do it right in the grease trap (Which had been the first plan)). This one most especially goes down very badly when the head of chemistry is ex EOD.

Walking into a major police station and handing over a bottle of dry picric acid found in grandads shed is also not to be encouraged.

Regards, Dan.

LOL! Great stories. I especially like the alpha emitter one.

To make a long story, super short. I had the bomb squad out to investigate and destroy one of my "projects" at 6 years old.

[DMills]

Thing is Pu 240 (as might be ordered from a school lab suppliers as a check source) is CHEMICALLY indistinguishable from any other Pu isotope!

Finding stray particles of Pu in a nuclear power environment, nervous making, especially when you cannot figure out where it came from.....

I still bow to the master, managing to get the EOD folk out at SIX years old, bravo!

Regards, Dan.

[buffo]

Anyone else ever try stripping the insulation off a lamp cord while it was still plugged into the wall? With your teeth?

Yeah, screamed like a 6 year old girl on that one. Wife came running (from the far end of the house) to see what happened, and I couldn't answer her until I had run out of profane compound-word combinations to spit out. That was a bad day...

How about this: 9th grade - ripped off a bunch of chemicals from the storage area behind the chem lab. Ended up mixing red phosphorus and sodium peroxide together in my bedroom (in a plastic tupperware bowl, using a butter knife as a stirrer). Spontaneous ignition left me with second degree burns all over my face and hands. And a hole burned in my mattress. That was fun. (Not)

Adam