LAB/SCHOOL

Our coolest ruler, hands down. It’s dark blue plastic, T-shaped, and packed with information. It’s an American Wire Gauge and a screw-size gauge. It measures UTS and ISO screw pitch, has SMD capacitor info, conversion scales, transistor and diode diagrams. It has a list of SI prefixes, digital logic gates, logic identities, electrical units and abbreviations, colors and wavelengths, transmission line equations, a protractor, a breadboard and tons more. If you’re not into that stuff, use it a 13”/33cm ruler. Measures 15" x 6-1/4” x 1/16" overall, and you might need a magnifier to read some of it. Made in the USA.

These are very nice (48)-page cardboard-bound notebooks with themes and some unobtrusive notes/formats that will be easy to ignore if you’re not into the subject, but twice as nice if you are. You pick: the 5” x 7” Star Trek United Federation Captain’s Log with a date/location entry on each lined page and fold-out info on the back cover, like a warp-speed conversion table; the 5” x 7” Stargazer’s Notebook with 1/4” rules plus a lightly printed 3-1/4” dia circle with 30-degree markings to chart the sky, and a fold-out back cover with an astrolabe and constellation chart; the 3-1/2” x 5” Star Trek Engineering notebook with a red cover, diagrams of a communicator, phaser and tricorder, grid pages, famous engineering quotes and room for your name, rank and serial number; the 3-1/2” x 5” Entomology notebook with a beetle cover, fold-out back cover showing a metamorphosis of an adult insect, ruled pages and room for observational notes and sketches; or the 3-1/2” x 5” Botany notebook with a fold-out back cover with illustrations of leaves for identification, ruled pages and room for observational notes and sketches.

We don't know why, but Bergamo, a town in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, has given its name to high-quality spiral-bound notebooks. They’re popular as journals or travel notebooks, and this one has (100) ivory pages lined on both sides. Also has a plain “soft-touch” cover (think suede-like). In a dark maroon/chocolate color. Measures 5-1/2" x 8-1/2". Jot down your thoughts and musings (you know you’ve got some good ones) or they might be gone forever.

These light-up pens are one of the coolest things we’ve come across in a long time, but then again, look who’s saying that—a copywriter. But really, they’re hard not to love. Pull off the metal cap, put it on the other end and bam, the ballpoint is suddenly illuminated by tiny LEDs for all the midnight scribbling you can do! Pen measures 5” tip to tip, is all metallic, and feels nice in the hand. Body is silver and cap, with a silver pocket clip, is either silver, black, white or red. Back end of the pen has a stylus, too. “It was a dark and stormy night…but really it wasn’t that dark because of this pen….”

Can't beat a classic. These uncoated ceramic donut magnets have a 1-lb pull, which makes them dandy for classroom or refrigerator use. They measure 1-1/4" dia x 3/8" ID x 3/16" thick and are polarized on the faces. You get a wrapped roll of 29 donuts.

Our thinner picker-upper, but with a powerful 5-lb-pull, 9/16" dia magnet on the business end (for spilled nails, the screw that rolled under the stove, or the heavy wrench you dropped into the sump). The 5/16" dia x 5-1/4" long 4-draw barrel extends to a full two feet. Has a convenient pocket clip.

Hang it all with this set of (10) magnetic hooks. The 1-3/16" long x 9/64" hooks screw into 1-3/8" dia magnetic bases with an approx 8-lb pull, which is heavier than most jackets and keys. Good for horizontal or vertical mounts, and dandy for adding hooks to gym or school lockers.

Our each is a package of (2) steel tech rulers. One is 6” x 1/32” for the first 2-1/2” then 1/64” for the next 1/2” then 1/16” for the last 3”. The other is 150mm x 0.5mm. Both have sliding markers/pocket clips, and both have mm:inch tables on the reverse side. You’ll need excellent eyesight.

It’s a cornucopia of stencils. All shapes, no alphabets. You’ll get a profusion of (8) clear acrylic stencil sheets, including: a raft of ovals; a preponderance of squares; a farrago of circles, hexagons, pentagons and triangles; a collection of a bunch of shapes, including trapezoids; a roomful of interior design shapes; a melange of electronic symbols; and an assortment we can’t altogether identify, but might be for printed circuit design. All have mm rules along at least one edge.

Or maybe more losses than profits? Either way, you'll need red pens. Our each is a dozen Paper Mate® medium-point (0.1mm) ballpoint pens. Each measures 6” long with a cap and pocket clip. Red ink never goes out of style.

We usually have pens, but we usually don’t have (40) packs of Paper Mate® Inkjoy pens in various colors all contained in a sort of tall, plastic peanut butter-type jar with a screwcap. These are long-lasting ballpoints with 1.0mm tips and caps with pocket clips. You’ll get (4) pens each in black, brown, blue, red, magenta, purple, green, lime green, turquoise and orange.

Scientifically speaking. This 8-1/2" x 11" science reference notebook is three-hole punched for inclusion in a binder. From McGraw-Hill, it's heavily illustrated and filled with facts, illustrations and definitions about biology, geology, astronomy, physics and much more. Science! Surplus factor: some may have been packed before the cover ink was dry, leaving a slight speckled pattern that has no effect on the science inside—we checked. And Science is our middle name.

It looks as though it should be used for administering laudanum! A 30mL, 1-1/4" sq x 3" tall clear glass bottle, it has thick molded sides and a heavy lip: very antique in appearance. It is stoppered with a red(!) rubber stopper which is the squeeze bulb for the glass dropper tube inside. A real eye catcher, but give it a good wash please. It clearly is not sterile.

Or singing suppositories. The pair is very magnetic, whatever they are. The 1-3/4" long prolate spheroids look like highly polished black hematites. Hold them an inch apart in your palm, toss 'em into the air and listen to them make a sound like the cyber-crickets. Or an electrocuted chicken. The manufacturer suggests keeping these mega-magnets away from computers, pacemakers, TV sets and credit cards.

Good things come in (2) different small packages. Our pocket microscopes are compact and perfect for a clear, close look at stamps, coins, flora, insects or assorted minutiae. The 30X version measures 5-3/4" x 1-5/8" x 3/4" in black plastic with a focus knob, on/off switch, small LED for illumination, and a vinyl carrying case. Requires (2) "AA"s. The 60X version is a microscopic 3-1/4" x 1-3/16" x 3/4" and has a built-in white LED illuminator powered by (3) coin-cell batteries that are included. Magnifies from 60-100X, with coarse- and fine-focus knobs, and has a vinyl carrying case.

A honey of a little digital scale, the techies in the back room say. This improved Triton T2® scale is pocket-sized (5-7/8" x 3-1/8" x 3/4" thick), and measures up to 300g x 0.1g, 10.5 oz x .005 oz, 190 pennyweight x 0.1 dwt, and 9.6 Troy ounces x .001 ozt. Has a zero/tare button and a cover that can be removed for use as a larger tray. Comes with (3) "AAA" batteries.

This plated N52 14,200 gauss neodymium magnet is shaped like a miniature silver ingot, measuring 1-1/2" long x 1/2" wide x 1/8" thick. Has a big hangonability quotient, which the manufacturer claims is 15 lbs of pull, meaning it's probably closer to 13 lbs. Impressive either way for such a cute little magnet. 

Eye dropper, tongue dropper, test tube dropper, petri dish dropper, anywhere dropper. Use this 3" glass dropper, with a rubber squeeze bulb to drop small amounts of liquid wherever you think they should go. You will have to measure by counting drops, though, because there are no markings on it. Also, it is called "3" because that is about how long the glass tube is. Overall, it is 4" long.