6
].
LABORATORY ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT
he will want additional test equipment including, probably, a tube
checker and a cathode ray oscilloscope.
A small machine shop is also almost inevitable. No doubt this will begin with a collection of hand tools and a vise. There are many times when
an electric hand drill is most useful. If a small lathe with a milling attachment, a drill press, and an electric grinder are available, these will
occasionally prove of great value if the investigator has any inventive
propensity.
An expensive evaporating unit used to be on the essential list; it was
particularly necessary for the carbon evaporation then used in the preparation of specimen supporting films. The newer embedding resins,
mainly being used nowadays, are sufficiently stable in themselves so that
additional support is no longer strictly necessary. So it has come to pass
that in laboratories that are entirely concerned with histological problems, evaporating units are chiefly relegated to the minor task of cleaning
molybdenum apertures. This is a job that could be done with nothing
more of a vacuum system than a fairly good mechanical pump, a small
bell jar, and a homemade baseplate, plus a heavy duty 12 volt transformer. However, there still are situations when supporting films are
desirable and even necessary, and if work involving shadow-casting or
replication is contemplated, a proper evaporating unit is as essential as
ever. Commercially available units with a full compliment of vacuum
gages, valves and pumps, as well as sources of low voltage, high amperage
current cost about $2500.
1.3. Management of the Laboratory
Upper echelon administrators like to think they are being efficient if
they can get several diverse groups to share common facilities. They are
apt not to realize that for every dollar of equipment money that they may
save this way they may lose many times this in salary money. After all,
if the laboratory is unproductive, the capital investment has been wasted.
The administrator with no particular knowledge of the problems involved often assumes that a single electron microscope laboratory can be
run as a service facility for a whole school or university, or for a complex
industrial plant with diverse interests. At first thought this does not seem
unreasonable, yet this implies that the responsible person in the labora-
].
LABORATORY ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT
he will want additional test equipment including, probably, a tube
checker and a cathode ray oscilloscope.
A small machine shop is also almost inevitable. No doubt this will begin with a collection of hand tools and a vise. There are many times when
an electric hand drill is most useful. If a small lathe with a milling attachment, a drill press, and an electric grinder are available, these will
occasionally prove of great value if the investigator has any inventive
propensity.
An expensive evaporating unit used to be on the essential list; it was
particularly necessary for the carbon evaporation then used in the preparation of specimen supporting films. The newer embedding resins,
mainly being used nowadays, are sufficiently stable in themselves so that
additional support is no longer strictly necessary. So it has come to pass
that in laboratories that are entirely concerned with histological problems, evaporating units are chiefly relegated to the minor task of cleaning
molybdenum apertures. This is a job that could be done with nothing
more of a vacuum system than a fairly good mechanical pump, a small
bell jar, and a homemade baseplate, plus a heavy duty 12 volt transformer. However, there still are situations when supporting films are
desirable and even necessary, and if work involving shadow-casting or
replication is contemplated, a proper evaporating unit is as essential as
ever. Commercially available units with a full compliment of vacuum
gages, valves and pumps, as well as sources of low voltage, high amperage
current cost about $2500.
1.3. Management of the Laboratory
Upper echelon administrators like to think they are being efficient if
they can get several diverse groups to share common facilities. They are
apt not to realize that for every dollar of equipment money that they may
save this way they may lose many times this in salary money. After all,
if the laboratory is unproductive, the capital investment has been wasted.
The administrator with no particular knowledge of the problems involved often assumes that a single electron microscope laboratory can be
run as a service facility for a whole school or university, or for a complex
industrial plant with diverse interests. At first thought this does not seem
unreasonable, yet this implies that the responsible person in the labora-