Medical / Dental tools

[Steve from Socal]

I have seen a few folks mention medical or dental tools here. I know a few who use some but this thread is about broadining the scope of these types of tools in general shop application. Now a lot of this stuff is just over the top for "shop work" but, things like the forceps AKA tweezers or hemostats, dental probes/picks and syrings/irrigation have plenty of shop use. The forceps and stats are great for getting at things lost in the abyss or holding a nut or bolt. The dental picks are great for O-rings and seals or cleaning in grooves or tight spots. I have some irrigation syrings that are great for oil and solvents. I have some glass syrings for stuff that is not compatable with rubber and use some large bore needles. This stuff is mostly US or European made of very high quality.

I have not seen any recient mention of these valuable tools in the forum and wanted to open up conversation on these. Please share your experience and what tools you use. I am sure there are plent of out of the box uses for all kinds of medical devices, lets hear them.

Steve

 

[Kuma601]

I use dental tools with some frequency to clean-pick out residue in threads and in crevices. Also work well as scribes in places I cannot get a straight typical scribe into.

Syringes for measuring out small quantities of epoxy accurately down to .3 cc applications like in jewelry but there are single stage adhesives that are reversible and are preferable. Also use syringes anytime I know the ratio but want to use in much smaller quantities.

 

[Tools4Me]

In addition to the things you already mentioned, I find scalpels very useful as long as the handles are good quality. With cheaper handles, the blades will often have side-to-side play during use, or the blades will be hard to load and remove. I use stainless German (Miltex) #3, and US made (Bard-Parker) chrome plated brass #4 and #7 scalpel handles. They work great. I use #10, #11, and #12 style sterile individually wrapped scalpel blades with them most of the time. In general, I use hobby style X-acto knives when I need a bit of cutting pressure or cutting force to do the job, and scalpels when I need refinement. Thicker cuts or heavy duty jobs are all done with a regular Stanley utility knife or one of my Olfa snap-blade knives.

Alligator forceps are useful because they allow you to grab things in very small/narrow areas.

One of my favorite tools for grabbing things that have fallen down into hard to access areas is a stainless laparoscopic grasper. It's a more refined alternative to a flexible pick-up magnet or a long 3-4 finger spring claw style pick-up tool. I have one with a 12" long shaft and one with a 24" long grasper shaft. Both have a basic two-jaw grabber tip. Operation is similar to an alligator forcep but (with mine at least) I can rotate the grasping jaws to align with what I want to grab, so I don't have to rotate my whole hand to align the grasping jaws with what I'm trying to pick up. A very handy feature.

I have a few surplus/used stainless dental mirrors as well. The smallest mirror about 3/8" in diameter and the largest one I have is about 1.5" in diameter or so. They are a supplement to my larger mechanic-style telescoping mirrors which get used a lot more often.

If this thread catches on OP, you might want to consider adding laboratory tools to the mix. I find things like graduated cylinders, beakers, spatulas, pipettes, lab stands, scoopulas, hot plates, etc. quite useful in the shop and around the house. GJ leans heavily towards mechanic tools and discussions, so those types of tools also don't get talked about much.

 

[Wakefield]

Such tools can be very useful. Thinking outside of the box?
I might have bought some such from Epstein's (HJE) (Jori Sackin) some time ago.

 

[RTM]

I have a few dental picks used for cleaning tiny areas , and a broken one where I’ve sharpened the stump into a chisel like shape, or putty knife depending on how soon it needs sharpening,

Lots for forceps, different tips and jaw shapes, one which doesn’t close fully. Couple of medical pincers, cutters and punches, for similar tasks. Tweezers for misc grabbing.

Dental mirrors for small hole looking.

Syringes for mixing, irrigating etc, and a few dedicated disposable ones for glue. Fine ones can be used to inject glue under veneer, might need to thin the glue a touch, planned project on that soon.

Think I have one test tube clamp running around

Some empty pipette tip holders for holding leather working punches, and other other skinny disposable shapes for holding things upright for Evaporust soaking.

 

[Johnny Generic]

I have a whole drawer in my CM toolbox dedicated to medical instruments. Cardiovascular forceps ( extremely fine tipped tweezers ) great for removing splinters, lung clamps for clamping off rubber fuel lines, plus all others as mentioned before. Johnny Generic.

 

[Bubba Fett]

I have a bunch of hemostats, dental picks, mirrors, etc. They are great for working in small areas. The hemostats are tiny clamps which are good for holding wires, etc.

 

[Miss the Pontiacs]

I always thought it would be cool to have an actual dentist drill.

 

[Kscardsfan]

When I'm gunsmithing and cleaning my toys, I use lots of dental picks, tweezers, forceps, hemostats etc. to manipulate small parts and and clean out tiny threads and crevices. I actually want someone to do some reviews on precision/micro screwdrivers on here sometime soon as well.

 

[Steve from Socal]

Anyone here use bone drills for shop use? I have a box with a bunch of new bone drills they all have a sharper point than a jobber drill. Thinking they may be OK for wood/plastic?

I have a good friend that is an opthimoligist who bought tons of surplus medical equipment from Government Liquidation years ago. He tried selling it to other docs with no success. I have access to any and all of it from airway support to X-ray aprons. There is pallets of stuff like sterilization trays, syrings, IV circuits and oxygen tubing etc. The instruments are varried with lung, kidney, cardiac and, other special clamps. Towel clamps of many types and sizes. Ortho tools and fixations, portable suction pumps, otoscopes by the dozens. Then there dental stuff, explorers, scrapers etc, drills/burs and retractors. Much of this stuff is new all the consumables are timed out.

I am finding new uses for many things. I will take some pictures of some of the towel clamps and such to see if you folks can suggest new uses for these.

Steve

 

[Max]

I use hemostats for fuel lines on motorcycles or small engines. Clamp a hemostat near the end you want to remove, unclip that end, and you're done with no fuel spilled...

 

[rharman]

I would love to have a dental chair articulated light. Looked at surplus sites but they're still way pricey.

 

[2oolhound]

I wanted to clean up a messy epoxy job I did recently. Dental tools were great for slicing into deep corners as well as burnishing the surface afterward.

 

[Steve from Socal]

How much interest is there for things like syrings, clamps/hemostats, dental scrapes, picks etc?

In looking over some stuff there is dozens if not hundreds of new dental instruments of all sorts, drills, burrs and pulp files too. Then there are syringes pallets of 5-10 and irrigation styles and, glass 5 mil with several needles and tubes that would be great for precision oiling/lube on sealed bearings. The glass syrings were/are in a spinal block pack that inclodes a series of needles one being over 3" long.

As far as clamps there is straight/curved hemostats from little 4" to 12" straight and curved some at 90 like long nose bent tip pliers but much more sleek. Bulldog clamps that are kinda like a curved alagator clip with serated jaws great for wire positioning. Many of the larger clamps are bent in ways that were optimized for a particular procedure and could be perfect for a number of tasks with obsticles. These range in quality from medical grade made in Pakistan to the best German and American. Many are new in packages most are bare stainless a few chrome. Most is high quality 90-95% Miltex, Codman, Philing, Allan Scott and Sicoa.

As for lab ware, there is some pippetts and stands. I have lab glass in cylinders and flasks for my own use there isn't any nice glassware in the mix of surplus. There is a boat load of old school blood pressuer cuffs, stethoscopes.

Steve

 

[rick carpenter]

I'm looking for a pick with a ~3/8" handle section. Not the usual form for dental instruments that I've seen so far, but is there one? I encounter small metric screws daily that sometimes I need to clean adhesive residue out of.