I built a magnet stand today. It’s comparable to a $100 Thermo Fisher product but only costs about $2 in materials. Maybe $10 if you have a service like ponoko cut the acrylic. The holes in the top hold a 1.5 ml centrifuge tube. The  center column has a receptacle for a 12 mm disc magnet. The design source file available in a github repository. I’m still learning github, but hopefully that makes it easily accessible.

The laser cut out these five pieces:

Then I assembled them into the stand and added a bit of superglue to the joints to hold it all together. It turns out that cyanoacrylate glue works really well on this material.

While assembling my fist prototype, the teeth were a little too big for the holes. One piece split apart and jabbed into my finger. It turns out that cyanoacrylate glues will also stop a cut from bleeding .

The use of cyanoacrylates to close wounds is nothing new. Cyanoacrylates are used in surgery and were used on the battlefield in the Vietnam war. I went searching for other blogs talking about this use of superglue and found this old Lifehacker article from 2012. So, yeah: you can close a wound with a little superglue. It’s not the best way, but it’s  it’s good to know in a pinch.

And now I need to digress a little.The top comment on this article is a pedant literally starting his comment with “uuummm, NO.” I read it in a nasal voice like droopy dog. It’s so stereotypical it’s funny.

Whatever, Droopy McProperface. Rub some dirt glue in it. There’s SCIENCE to be done.