But I didn’t put them away. The tweezers, along with the box’s worth of other gear I shipped back, are just sitting on top of my lab bench. I decided this would be a good moment to clean out the drawers below the bench where these things belong, drawers that currently are crammed with crap. Easier said than done. I have been focused on unpacking at home.
I got those tweezers when I was a postdoc working at UC Berkeley with Zac Cande. They are stainless steel, number 3 Inox (and two others traveling too). I got two pairs of the number 3s. Somewhere along the line I got a third; long enough ago that I cannot remember where. They are a trio now.
In Zac’s lab, several of us were doing assays where we isolated the mitotic spindle from dividing diatom cells and then attempted to make it continue to work while we watched through a microscope. This so-called in-vitro assay is tricky because the material from the cell has to be maintained in a functional state—no damage. Many of us were also doing more conventional assays where the biological material is fixed; that is, treated with a crosslinking chemical (e.g., glutaraldehyde) to lock everything up tight, preserved for observation later. Accordingly, the lab used two sets of glassware: one for working with fixed samples and the other set for no-fix samples. This reminded me of people who keep Kosher kitchens with two sets of dishes: Dairy and no-dairy. Are these people terrible dish washers? After a scrub, there really is hardly going to be any milk left on the plate. But you wouldn’t want to irk the great creator by a bit of careless washing. The Cande lab adopted a similar practice with respect to fixative: Even tho the amount of glutaraldehyde left behind on a beaker is likely to be trivial, why take the risk? I got one tweezer for fix and another for non. Even now, the word ‘fix’ remains clear on the scrap of red tape I wrapped around the end of tweezer one.
These tweezers are well traveled. They have been with me as I moved to a second postdoc, to a first job and then a second, as well as coming along for various sabbaticals and shorter research trips. I sharpened them to keep the tips in good shape. Sharpening steel tweezers is fun; yes, really. Writing this, I will probably lose them tomorrow but I am surprised that I haven’t lost them yet. I lose things. A hat or pair of gloves, no matter how much I like them, hangs around for only a few years. But there the tweezers are, waiting patiently on the bench. I suppose I should be glad that tweezers cannot talk.
Tobias,
Lovely to see gear with a stroy and put through its paces! How does one sharpen tweezers, and how often? Can the 5s be sharpened without ruining them??
You need a fine whetstone and a drop of machine oil. You hold the tips together and sharpen as a pair. The difficulty comes if one of the tines is bent toward the other so that you need to come in under to straighten. That takes either a wedge-shaped stone or a fine flat file. You can do all this while watching thru a dissecting scope. Or just by eye. As for frequency — that depends on how often you drop them! Or tweeze apart bearskin. With gentle use, they don’t need sharpening very often. Yes, you can do 5’s. But you have to be careful because you can sharpen off alot of metal really quickly. I would recommend watching 5s thru a dissector (you put the stone on the stage of the ‘scope and sharpen while you watch). Most labs have a stash of trashed tweezers — great for practice!