Construction has been moving right along in the labs. We're still waiting on a few things (e.g., fume hood being fixed, tables being ordered, moving book shelves etc.), but the actual construction is starting to wind down.
Earlier this week, there was a treasure trove uncovered upstairs. Several of the other labs on campus have been storing old equipment for years, waiting for surplus. All of this was piled together in a spare room and an email circulated - FREE lab items! Take what you want.
I grabbed the paleo cart and was upstairs in less than 5 minutes.
There were a lot of nice items that I had no use for, but I did manage to snag a few treasures for the paleo labs. My favorites are the white board/cork board combo that I plan to dedicate exclusively to volunteer news and things, and the slide boxes. There were about thirty wooden boxes with metal inserts to hold 1" x 3" biological microscope slides. On the surface, they appeared to be junk, but to someone who has a research interest in paleohistology, they were treasure! Normally, petrographic (geologic) thin section boxes are only 25 ct. and made out of cardboard (usually $3-6 each), and also run the risk of being crushed under the misguided trajectory of a heavy object. New 100 ct. 1" x 3" slide boxes on the Ward Scientific's website run $49 each. Mine were free, and I'll say were quite a bargain!
The glue holding the metal inserts in place was old and brittle, and thus the inserts were easily removed. The boxes were perfectly sized too - two 50-slot rows that would hold a total of 100 1" x 3" bio slides were easily converted into three 50-slot rows that would hold a total of 150 1" x 2" petrographic/paleohistologic slides per box. I was able to make 19 petrographic/paleohistologic slide boxes out of the lot. The empty wooden boxes I am also re-purposing. One is sitting by my office door, waiting a light sanding, painting and polyurethane coating. Then it'll be moved over to the Sunny Lab (aka Dr. Weil's lab - which is aptly named for the gigantic windows) to hold all of our 'sharps' (e.g., X-acto knife, spare blades, needles). The other boxes are shelved for future needs. There are probably more boxes like these to be found, but right now we are sitting on storage for 2800+ petrographic/paleohistologic thin sections. I think we are good for now.
~ JB McHugh
