I'm going to be spending a good chunk of the rest of my day scrounging up adapters to connect two different classes of plumbing fittings. In honor of that, here's a poll question based on something that one research group used to do:
Amusingly, I have seen something that easily could have been turned into a Swagelok to BNC adapter (in fact, I might still have one in my lab), that served a serious purpose.
(BNC is a type of electrical connection, Swagelok is a type of plumbing fitting. You wouldn't normally connect one to the other.)
Physical Science
Education
Comments
What does it say about me that the BNC part of the question gives me no trouble, but that I had no clue what a swagelok is? Maybe I just spend too much time with the electronics...
Posted by: Chris Granade | July 29, 2010 11:46 AM
Once when someone dropped an NMR tube down the bore of the NMR, we sent them to the glass shop to get a glass magnet. Bob in the glass shop was wise enough to give the guy a long glass rod. After the new grad. student fished around for about a half hour, we suggested he go make sure that Bob had given him the glass magnet. Bob kept a straight face and gave him another rod. We couldn't when the student got back the second time.
I miss grad school.
Posted by: Bill | July 29, 2010 12:08 PM
I hope your lab is in a basement so the student can't google swagelok while walking down the hall.
Posted by: scramton | July 29, 2010 12:29 PM
You left out one option: a stupid fratboy male-dominance rite that wastes time, energy and respect.
Posted by: featheredfrog | July 29, 2010 12:36 PM
It's also a reasonably efficient method for establishing if this person actually understands the terminology for the lab's equipment.
Me, I was suspicions about the "tent jacks" in Boy Scouts.
Posted by: David Owen-Cruise | July 29, 2010 1:17 PM
I'd like a BNC-Swagelok adapter! Or a BNC-VCR adapter.
Of course, the proper name for what I think of when you say "BNC-Swagelok adapter" would probably be something like a "BNC electrical feedthrough on a Swagelok vacuum connection", but if BNC feedthroughs exist for Conflat, why not for a swage fitting?
In response to the poll question, I don't really see the amusement in the practical joke (although if it was a spontaneous thing I think I'd find the idea funny in the moment) but for whatever reason I find featheredfrog@#4's response even more off-putting.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward | July 29, 2010 2:28 PM
I made a BNC to KF-25 adapter. I use it to this day...
Posted by: bp | July 29, 2010 2:53 PM
In the navy they send the new guy out for five gallons of prop wash and fifty feet of shore line.
This sort of thing can be a momentary chuckle or an epic adventure. Call ahead to the depot and they can embellish it by claiming they sent out the last of shore line and prop wash to a distant warehouse. Like in another state. Given that the first people told him that these items were vital to the the fleet, and not to return until he gets them, it has been known to keep a person at it for a week or more and to have them go, quite literally, from Maine to Florida in their quest.
It works out even better if the dupe can be kept unaware of the situation even as he finds the materials and delivers a five gallon bucket full of water, dutifully stenciled that it is USGI, USN approved, prop wash and a length of heavy rope tagged as shore line, complete with a 13 digit NSN.
Senior chiefs have been known to place bets on how long they can keep the joke going. There are rumors that there were some recruits that served an entire enlistment without catching on.
Every branch of service and trade seems to have an analogous set of nonsense items.
Posted by: Art | July 29, 2010 3:54 PM
Art: I'd heard of requests to fetch prop wash before (apparently they also do this to n00bs in the Air Force and in civil aviation), but the "shore line" request is new to me.
David: I never heard of tent jacks, but back in my Boy Scout days I heard requests for left-handed smoke shifters and bacon stretchers. And of course there is the ubiquitous snipe hunt.
I'd imagine there might be some amusement if, just before going on a boat ride, somebody were to send the n00b out to get some bow shocks for the boat. After all, it might be a rough ride.
Posted by: Eric Lund | July 29, 2010 4:54 PM
@ featheredfrog: C'mon, are you serious? I bet you're a real hoot at dinner parties.
This is harmless fun. I'm a builder and we do this to the young blokes all the time. If I had a dollar for every time I've sent an apprentice somewhere for 'a long wait' or striped paint I'd be rich. I have never seen one kid take offence or not find it funny.
Posted by: Shane Dalzell | July 29, 2010 10:59 PM
Back in the dark ages I sent the apprentice out to buy us a couple of left-handed trowels. He was a bright bloke and went straight to the Left-Hand Shop. He came back with two (unusable to the rest of us) left-handed trowels.
He's now the manager.
Posted by: fvngvs | July 30, 2010 3:46 AM
Is the "adaptor" you've got actually a vacuum feedthrough? Because the first time I heard that joke I thought of our MOT coils -- which were attached to Swagelok fluid feedthroughs, to which we attached (relatively) high voltage cables, so that current ran through the outside of our copper tubing and cooling water ran through the inside. Because if you're runnning 30 Amps through a coil in a vacuum you'd better water cool it. When I first saw that set-up I thought it was kind of insane, then I took it for granted, and now that I deal with glass MOT chambers with external coils, I think it's kind of insane again. But anyway, a swagelok to BNC adaptor actually would have made a certain amount of sense for that application. And the Swagelok feedthroughs did look very similar to the BNC feedthroughs.
Posted by: Mary | July 30, 2010 7:51 AM
Sadly, you'd probably get the same result if you sent the newbie looking for an adapter that connects two specific sizes of Swagelok, since there seems to be some sort of immutable law of the universe that no plumbing parts cabinet, however well-stocked, will ever have the exact adapter you need.
Posted by: Nick | July 30, 2010 10:00 AM
How about a BNC to KFC adapter?
Posted by: Avi Steiner | July 30, 2010 10:39 PM
It's an old law of chemistry laboratories that the more standard fittings you have, the less likely you are to find two that fit (and the bigger your drawer of connectors have to be).
Posted by: Sili | July 31, 2010 12:21 AM
Theory option FTW! I can slurp down koohei in Tokyo with my laptop and/or pad of paper and still be getting good work done. ;)
Posted by: Joseph | July 31, 2010 8:25 AM
(the critical flaw is that one generally isn't sitting in a cafe slurping down koohei in Tokyo....)
Posted by: Joseph | July 31, 2010 8:34 AM